as in to pretend
to take on a false or deceptive appearance
as an actress she had been trained to dissimulate, so she had no trouble hiding her true feelings offstage as well
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Recent Examples of dissimulate
The result is that Republican politicians dissimulate much more, and of course there is no comparable primary competition.
—
Tyler Cowen, Twin Cities, 5 July 2019
Tyler Cowen, Twin Cities, 5 July 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissimulate
pretend
Verb
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The study saw parents use actions to joke and pretend with kids aged 16 to 20 months old.—
Jack Beresford,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Sep. 2025
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Scrolling on one’s phone can be a deadening experience, but here’s someone feeling, or at least pretending to feel, a genuine feeling—even if the abundance of these videos surely numbs us further.—
Spencer Kornhaber,
The Atlantic,
15 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dissimulate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissimulate. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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