Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of dissimulating; concealment of reality under a diverse or contrary appearance; feigning; hypocrisy; deceit.
  • noun Synonyms Simulation (see dissemble and dissembler), duplicity, deceit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of dissembling; a hiding under a false appearance; concealment by feigning; false pretension; hypocrisy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of concealing the truth; hypocrisy or deception.
  • noun Hiding one's feelings or purposes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of deceiving

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin dissimulātiō.

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Examples

  • Still we have our limits beyond which we call dissimulation treachery.

    Romola George Eliot 1849

  • So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings when they tyrannise and insult over the humbler of the people, I affirm that their dissimulation is not free from nefarious perfidy, because they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people, while knowing that, by the ordinance of God, they are its appointed guardians.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » The Stamp Act 2010

  • A course of lying, of deceit and dissimulation, is that which every good man dreads and which we are all concerned to beg of

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721

  • My immediate reaction is that his article feels kind of like an ambush, can it be called dissimulation or subterfuge?

    The Spirit - news with a Catholic Heart... Terry Nelson 2006

  • My immediate reaction is that his article feels kind of like an ambush, can it be called dissimulation or subterfuge?

    Archive 2006-12-10 Terry Nelson 2006

  • Wherefore, although he did not lie in words, yet with respect to the matter of fact, his dissimulation was a lie, by implication.

    Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1 1509-1564 1996

  • Being a woman she understood perfectly the art of dissimulation, which is a necessary accomplishment, a thousand circumstances requiring its exercise for the sake of her security, peace, and comfort.

    Ninon de L'Enclos the Celebrated Beauty of the 17th Century Robinson, Charles Henry 1903

  • [387] His dissimulation was his disregard of the divine call in the vision described in § 21.

    St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh of Clairvaux Bernard 1899

  • His reserve might by the ill-natured have been termed dissimulation, inasmuch as when asked by the ladies of the embassy what had become of the young person who had amused them that day so cleverly he gave it out that her whereabouts was uncertain and her destiny probably obscure; he let it be supposed in a word that his benevolence had scarcely survived an accidental, a charitable occasion.

    The Tragic Muse Henry James 1879

  • They know the difference between darkness and light; and know that genuine love consists in manifesting chastity of heart, which lives upon love alone, and does not pride itself on dissimulation, which is a vice.

    The Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre 1855

Comments

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  • A flock of birds

    November 16, 2007

  • "All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible, the least hint to the contrary; and from this tissue of elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska’s lover."

    - Edith Wharton, 'The Age of Innocence'.

    September 20, 2009