fainaigue

English

WOTD – 21 January 2022

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”.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fəˈneɪɡ/, /-ˈniːɡ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /fəˈneɪɡ/, /-ˈniɡ/
• Rhymes: -eɪɡ, -iːɡ
• Hyphenation: fai‧naigue

Verb

fainaigue (third-person singular simple present fainaigues, present participle fainaiguing, simple past and past participle fainaigued) (chiefly British, dialectal)

1. (transitive)
   1. To achieve or obtain (something) by complicated or deceitful methods; to finagle, to wangle.
      • 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:

        [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.

      • 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:

        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.

      • 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:

        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.

   2. To cheat or deceive (someone).
      • 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:

        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.

      • 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:

        [H]e was doing a stitch of time in Ohio for embezzlement and for fainaiguing a good-hearted Jack under the alias Joseph […]

2. (intransitive)
   1. To evade work or shirk responsibility.
   2. To fail to keep a promise; to renege.
   3. (card games) To renege (“break one's commitment to follow suit when capable”).
      • [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:

        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.]

Derived terms

• fainaiguing (adjective, noun)
• fainaiguer
• finagle

Translations

to achieve or obtain (something) by complicated or deceitful methods — see finagle,‎ wangle

to cheat or deceive (someone) — see cheat,‎ deceive

to evade work or shirk responsibility — see shirk

to fail to keep a promise; (card games) to renege — see renege

Further reading

• “fainaigue”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.