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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

faint.

Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/feɪnt/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

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

    I felt faint after my fifth gin and tonic.
    He almost fell faint due to the hot climate.

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

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

    There was a faint red light in the distance.

  4. Performed, done, or acted, weakly; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy.

    faint efforts
    faint resistance

  5. Slight; minimal.

    a faint chance

  6. Sickly, so as to make a person feel faint.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/feɪnt/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. The act of fainting, syncope.

    She suffered another faint.

  2. The state of one who has fainted; a swoon.

    rare
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/feɪnt/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. To lose consciousness through a lack of oxygen or nutrients to the brain, usually as a result of suddenly reduced blood flow (may be caused by emotional trauma, loss of blood or various medical conditions).

    intransitive
    A fainting fit.

  2. To lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent.

    intransitive

  3. To decay; to disappear; to vanish.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English fainten, feynten, from the adjective (see above).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.