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Renan torres-rivero Posted 16 years ago
Vocabulary

To pretend to be busy or working hard: one word only

Please, dear teachers.

Can you tell me what word in English means "to pretend to be busy or to be working hard"? Just one-word expression, please.

I remember I learnt it a few weeks ago but I can't recall the way it is spelt.

ThanX in advance.

RENAN
  

Top answer

Feign is a possibility.

— Philip

  • Feign is a possibility.
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6 Answers
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Feign is a possibility.
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Feign is a synonym of "pretend". But the word I referred to meant "to pretend to be full of work when the situation is the contrary", e.g. "to have your desk full of papers and feign you are too busy to do anything else"



Thanks anyway,



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A person in that situation might be said to be "paper-shuffling".
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There is a word in Dutch, made up by a Dutch writer in 1954, that means about the same thing: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epibreren. If I'd follow the "conventions" of similar words that are translated to English, you could probably say "to epibrate" or "epibrating".

However, this is not an official word,
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to boondoggle. Usage North American
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There is an old (not used anymore) word for that, is Fudgel

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