Dictionary

fainaigue en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /-ˈniɡ/ (General-American)
• /-ˈniːɡ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /fəˈneɪɡ/ (General-American)
• /fəˈneɪɡ/ (Received-Pronunciation)

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”.

Meanings

1. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To achieve or obtain (something) by complicated or deceitful methods; to finagle, to wangle.
   • 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. 1969 September, Fintan M. Phayer, “Adam Adami and the Peace of Westphalia”, in Timothy Fry, editor, The American Benedictine Review, volume XX, number 3, Atchison, Kan.: The American Benedictine Academy, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 329:
   • 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. 1991, Harry Partch, “Bitter Music”, in Thomas McGeary, editor, Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos (Music in American Life), 1st paperback edition, Urbana; Chicago, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, published 2000, →ISBN, part 1 (Two Journals), page 28:
   • [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. 1958, [Jay] Saunders Redding, “Mississippi Delta”, in Lewis Gannett, editor, The Lonesome Road: The Story of the Negro’s Part in America (Mainstream of America Series), Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, →OCLC, page 111:
2. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To cheat or deceive (someone).
   • 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. 1880, M[argaret] A[nn] Courtney, “Feneaged”, in M. A. Courtney, Thomas Q[uiller] Couch, Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall, London: […] [F]or the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC, page 21, column 1:
   • [H]e was doing a stitch of time in Ohio for embezzlement and for fainaiguing a good-hearted Jack under the alias Joseph […] 2010 June 3, Neil Baker, “Jest because You’re You”, in G Day: Please God, Get Me Off the Hook, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 142:
3. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To evade work or shirk responsibility.
4. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To fail to keep a promise; to renege.
5. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To renege (“break one's commitment to follow suit when capable”).
   • 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. [1888, Q. [pseudonym; Arthur Quiller-Couch], “Of Deterioration; and a Wheelbarrow that Contained Unexpected Things”, in The Astonishing History of Troy Town, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC, page 147:

Forms

Deriveds

fainaiguing · finagle · fainaiguer

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