dissimulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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dissimulates,
present (3rd person singular)
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dissimulated,
past participle, past
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dissimulating
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
dissimulates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
dissimulated,
past participle, past
-
dissimulating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dissimulatesimple
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dissimulatessimple
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have dissimulatedperfect
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has dissimulatedperfect
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am dissimulatingprogressive
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are dissimulatingprogressive
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is dissimulatingprogressive
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have been dissimulatingperfect progressive
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has been dissimulatingperfect progressive
Past
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dissimulatedsimple
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had dissimulatedperfect
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was dissimulatingprogressive
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were dissimulatingprogressive
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had been dissimulatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dissimulate
First recorded in 1525–35, dissimulate is from the Latin word dissimulātus (past participle of dissimulāre to feign). See dis- 1, simulate
Explanation
Your wife gave you socks for Christmas and you smiled happily and kissed her? You, my friend, know how to dissimulate — that is, cover up your true feelings. Unless you happen to really, really like socks. Sometimes confused with dissimilar, meaning "not alike", or "different," or a form of simulate, meaning "to pretend to do or feel something." Being able to dissimulate is a useful trick, not just if your wife gives you socks. After all, the whole political process depends on it. As Louis XI once said, "He who knows not how to dissimulate, can not reign." Wikipedia would probably agree with that.
Vocabulary lists containing dissimulate
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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The Prince
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But the Gift’s double-sided sword–ness also justifies the regime’s turning of Wakanda into an encrypted nation, a nation projecting a simulated self in order to dissimulate.
From Slate ● Feb. 20, 2018
Aspirants to public office in the US may well dissimulate, but in a wide-open cultural landscape, with only the occasional ironic outcropping, there's hardly anywhere for them to hide.
From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2013
He knew how to dissimulate his intentions so well that the Orsini themselves, through Lord Paulo, reconciled themselves with him.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
Then we can judge how far we must dissimulate with these gentlemen until your relation with Freyer can be dissolved without any violent outbreak or without being compelled to use any undue haste.
From On the Cross A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau by Wilhelmine von Hillern
Perhaps in some way the air of indecision and anxiety was due to that expression peculiar to those afflicted with deafness whose aim it is to dissimulate their infirmity.
From Garrick's Pupil by Auguston Filon
Some hatred, weak and without self-confidence, or seeking the effect of surprise, is hypocritical, dissimulates, affects friendly feeling, rubs its hands over insults and awaits the opportune moment.
From The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson
I am certain she dissimulates her affection for you with greater care than you take to multiply proofs of yours for her.
From Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos The Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century by William Hassell Overton
Monk, who combines virtue with tact, dissimulates at first, then suddenly at the head of his troops dissolves the rebel parliament, and re-establishes the king on the throne.
From The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
At his age a man no longer dissimulates in his own family; he became more and more thoughtful, serious, and grieved as the hour approached when he would be forced to meet his civil death.
From The Alkahest by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Other artists dissimulated their debts to French painting or let critics bury them.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unfortunately, the nature of his delirium was not very evident, and he dissimulated so well that the jurists would not admit his irresponsibility, in spite of my medical certificate.
From The Sexual Question A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study by Auguste Forel
Thus had come about that good understanding, that sense of proprietorship definite on the part of the one, dissimulated, yet tangible and existent, on that of the other, which reigned between them.
From Fordham's Feud by Bertram Mitford
They stuck to the cabinet with a kind of dissimulated dread, while she painfully asked herself whether she should notice it, notice everything, or just pretend not to be affected.
From The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James
A dissimulated form would have been the better expression.
From An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans by Lydia Maria Francis Child
I’m sure Vikram has a high IQ, but did not display good judgment in dissimulating to me.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 21, 2026
Given this particular movie, she presumably also lectures on “Cyrano de Bergerac” and topics like the dissimulating heroine.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2021
She herself was dissimulating each day, biding her time until she could just get out.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2019
On the contrary, it is the very heart of society's real unreality, capable of infinitely executing itself, and endlessly dissimulating the absence of the real.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2018
Her whole dissimulating policy is much more questionable than our one breach of neutrality, committed in self-defense and accompanied by the most solemn promises of indemnity and restitution.
From New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 Who Began the War, and Why? by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
