Word.ws English Dictionary

feints

feints is the plural of feint.

feints is the third-person singular simple present indicative of feint.

Meaning of feint

Noun

feint (plural feints)

  1. (often) A movement made to confuse an opponent; a dummy.
    • In October, Friburg had been taken by a Feint of the Duke of Crequi, before the Duke of Lorrain cou'd come to relieve it; […]1683, William Temple, “Memoirs of what Pass’d in Christendom, from the War Begun 1672, to the Peace Concluded 1679. Chapter III.”, in The Works of Sir William Temple, […], volume I, London: […] J....
  2. A blow, thrust, or other offensive movement resembling an attack on some part of the body, intended to distract from a real attack on another part.
    • He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he...1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst...
  3. (figuratively) Something feigned; a false or pretend appearance; a pretence or stratagem.
    • [I]f your zeal slackens, how can one help thinking that Mr. Courtly's letter is but a feint to get off from a subject in which either your own, or the private and base ends of others to whom you are partial, or those of whom you are afraid, would not endure a reformation?1712 January 28 (Gregorian calendar), [Philobrune [pseudonym]], “THURSDAY, January 18, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 286; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New...

See all 9 meanings of feint

Noun

feints pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only, alcohol production) The strong spirit produced at the beginning of distillation (strong feints, also foreshot), and the weak spirit produced at the end (weak feints, also tailings or tail).
    • A low-wines still's distilling power cannot be ascertained by the actual bulk of the distillates in strong and weak feints and spirits obtained in a given time, […].1893, John Albert Nettleton, The Manufacture of Spirit: As Conducted at the Various Distilleries of the United Kingdom, London: Marcus Ward & Co., Limited, page 125

Questions about feints

What does feints mean?
Feints means the strong spirit produced at the beginning of distillation (strong feints, also foreshot), and the weak spirit produced at the end (weak feints, also tailings or tail).
What is feints the plural of?
Feints is the plural of feint.
What part of speech is feints?
Feints is a noun.

Words near feints in the dictionary

  1. feinted
  2. feinter
  3. feinters
  4. feintest
  5. feinting
  6. feints
  7. feirie
  8. feis
  9. feiseanna
  10. feist
  11. feist dog

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feints (page history and authors); feint (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “feints.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feints. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.