malinger
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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malingersimple
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malingerssimple
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have malingeredperfect
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has malingeredperfect
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am malingeringprogressive
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are malingeringprogressive
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is malingeringprogressive
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have been malingeringperfect progressive
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has been malingeringperfect progressive
Past
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malingeredsimple
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had malingeredperfect
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was malingeringprogressive
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were malingeringprogressive
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had been malingeringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of malinger
First recorded in 1810–20; from French malingre “sickly, ailing,” equivalent to mal- “bad, ill” + Old French heingre “haggard” (perhaps from Germanic ); see mal-
Explanation
When you malinger, you pretend to be sick. If you ever claimed to have a stomach ache in order to stay home from school, you know what it means to malinger. The word malinger comes from the French malingre, which can mean "ailing or sickly," but its exact origin is uncertain. One theory says that mal, or "wrongly," suggests the sick person is just faking. Lying about a stomach ache, holding the thermometer near a light bulb, refusing to get out of bed, moaning — these are classic tactics of those who malinger, or pretend to be too sick to do anything but lie around the house.
Vocabulary lists containing malinger
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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:
In other cases, prisoners malinger to try to get themselves out of solitary confinement, or a transfer into a quieter mental health-centered unit.
From Slate ● Feb. 22, 2022
She looked up malinger and read the definition: “To pretend to be ill in order to escape duty or work.’
From "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech
No man ever essayed to malinger or to shirk a duty to which he had been allotted by the doctor.
From Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben by Mahoney, Henry Charles
There isn't a sick man on board except one I've persuaded to malinger to keep me out of mischief.
From A Tall Ship On Other Naval Occasions by Bartimeus
X For weeks, for months I have not seen the sun; The minatory dawns are leprous pale; The felon days malinger one by one; How like a dream Life is! how vain! how stale!
From Rhymes of a Rolling Stone by Service, Robert W. (Robert William)
It malingers, this idea; it affects us still.
From Slate ● Oct. 5, 2011
His fellow prisoners, the great German admirals Raeder and Doenitz, squabble like jealous ensigns; the disintegrating Rudolph Hess, once Hitler's deputy, malingers and throws fits to garner pity.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now it malingers because of people's concern for the second front.
From Time Magazine Archive
Next reflect upon the opposite reputation of his accusers, and I venture to say malingers, though in truth there is but one, not sustained by the other.
From The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance by Adams, John Turvill
It malingers because of weakness, playfulness, imitation, egotism, jealousy, envy, and revenge.
From Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Glueck, Bernard
He has never sulked, malingered, strutted, whined, wheedled or referred to himself in the third person.
From Time Magazine Archive
Three times already have 1 malingered through medical examinations.
From Time Magazine Archive
All the frankly psychotic manifestations, such as his delusional ideas and his grave affection of the lower extremity which served to put him in a hospital for the insane, were, of course, entirely malingered.
From Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Glueck, Bernard
I never malingered when pulling on a rope, for I knew the eagle eyes of my forecastle mates were squinting for just such evidences of my inferiority.
From A Collection of Stories by London, Jack
This confusion and difficulty of differentiation between actual mental disease and malingered symptoms may manifest itself in two ways.
From Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Glueck, Bernard
Neither the defence's witnesses nor the prison's doctors believed Jeffries was "malingering" - or intentionally fabricating or exaggerating his symptoms.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2026
In some cases, they have attributed reported health-effects from fume exposure to factors including hyperventilation, jet lag, psychological stress, mass hysteria and malingering.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2025
Staton had previously ruled Girardi had some cognitive impairment but was competent to stand trial and even showed signs of malingering, or exaggerating, his dementia symptoms.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 19, 2024
Detecting that someone is malingering is not an exact science.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 17, 2023
Each day over the next few months, Van Rensburg would charge one of us for insubordination or malingering.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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.
