faint

CEFRB2

/feɪnt/

adjective · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Weak, unclear, or difficult to see or hear.

  2. 02

    verb

    To suddenly lose consciousness for a short time.

Examples

  • I suddenly stood up and felt faint and light-headed.

  • The faint smell of her perfume lingered in the room.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Barely perceptible; not bright, or loud, or sharp.

  2. Lacking courage, spirit, or energy; cowardly; dejected.

  3. Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness

More examples

In context

  • The sound of shouting grew faint.

  • He almost fell faint due to the hot climate.

  • I felt faint after my fifth gin and tonic.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

She felt so weak that she thought she might blank in the heat.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English faynt, feynt (“weak; feeble”), from Old French faint, feint (“feigned; negligent; sluggish”), past participle of feindre, faindre (“to feign; sham; work negligently”), from Latin fingere (“to touch, handle, form, shape, frame, form in thought, imagine, conceive, contrive, devise, feign”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to mold”). Cognate with feign and fiction and more distantly dough.