fainaigue
/fəˈneɪɡ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To achieve or obtain (something) by complicated or deceitful methods; to finagle, to wangle.
British usage; Transitive verb
verb
To renege (“break one's commitment to follow suit when capable”).
British usage; Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "[Edmund] Richardson's contract lapsed in 1871, but five years later the almost incredible Jones Hamilton, who played with plantations, race tracks, railroads, and steamboats as a reckless boy plays with marbles, fainaigued a similar agreement."
- "The Swabian abbots were in this way fainaigued into choosing [Adam] Adami, but this arrangement still left him without the so-called Virilstimme or final vote."
- "After much waving of arms I discover that—although meals of a sort are furnished—you are expected to provide your own dishes, if, indeed, you anticipate this refinement in eating. I finally fainaigue a tin plate out of the mess department, for which I am required to give two lire."
- "He agreed with the boy for a month at £4 a-year, and he went away and feneaged that boy, and never took him nor paid him."
- "[H]e was doing a stitch of time in Ohio for embezzlement and for fainaiguing a good-hearted Jack under the alias Joseph […]"
- "When Mr. Simpson had spoken of the "Jack of Oaks" (meaning the Knave of Clubs), or had said "fainaiguing" (where others said "revoking"), we had pretended not to notice it, until at length we actually did not."
Etymology
Uncertain; perhaps: * related to Old French fornoiier, fornier (“to deny”), from for- (prefix expressing error, exclusion, or inadequacy) + noiier, nier (“to deny”) (compare Late Latin forīsnegāre (“to renege, repudiate”), where the Frankish for- is rendered into Latin as forīs), from Latin negāre (“to deny; to refuse, say no; to reject, turn down (something)”), from nē (“no; not”) + aiō (“to affirm, say ‘yes’”)) (for the word ending, compare reneague (“to refuse to follow suit in a card game, renege; to deny, refuse; act of refusing to follow suit in a card game”) (Britain, dialectal)); or * from feign (“to pretend”) + ague (“intermittent fever; (obsolete) acute fever”), or French aigüe (“(medicine) acute”) (as in maladie aiguë (“acute illness”)), literally “to act sick”.
Origin
- Source language: Old French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /fəˈneɪɡ/
- British English: /fəˈneɪɡ/
Usage
- British usage
- Transitive verb
- Intransitive verb