noun

• (often military) A movement made to confuse an opponent; a dummy.
  "In October, Friburg had been taken by a Feint of the Duke of Crequi, before the Duke of Lorrain cou'd come to relieve it; […]"
• (boxing, fencing) A blow, thrust, or other offensive movement resembling an attack on some part of the body, intended to distract from a real attack on another part.
  "He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he mediated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter."
• (figuratively) Something feigned; a false or pretend appearance; a pretence or stratagem.
  "[I]f your zeal slackens, how can one help thinking that Mr. Courtly's letter is but a feint to get off from a subject in which either your own, or the private and base ends of others to whom you are partial, or those of whom you are afraid, would not endure a reformation?"

verb

• (transitive, boxing, fencing)
  "Genevra scowled and said, "His word is wild, / But dastard treason feinteth such disorders: / Treason or witchcraft neither, undefiled, / A Christian court may cherish in its borders.""
• (transitive, boxing, fencing)
  "Feint him—use your legs! draw him about! he'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into him."
• (intransitive, boxing, fencing, also often military) To make a feint or mock attack.
  "Ben-Hur feinted with his right hand. The stranger warded, slightly advancing his left arm. Ere he could return to guard, Ben-Hur caught him by the wrist in a grip which years at the oar had made terrible as a vise."

adj

• (boxing, fencing, also often military) Of an attack or offensive movement: directed toward a different part from the intended strike.
• (obsolete) Feigned, counterfeit, fake.
  "We force ourselves to be hypocrites, and hide our wrongs from them; we speak of a bad father with false praises; we wear feint smiles over our tears and deceive our children—deceive them, do we?"