Other forms: dissembling, dissembled
To dissemble is to hide your true feelings behind a false show. Dissemble well, learn to dissemble, no need to dissemble.
It is not quite lying: to dissemble is to put on a face rather than to state a falsehood, which is why it is the word for courts and diplomacy. It is a different word from disassemble, meaning to take apart.
1verbdissembleTo hide your true feelings behind a false show.
“She dissembled her disappointment with a bright smile and warm congratulations.”
dissemble is a concealing.
Old French dissembler comes from Latin dissimulare, to conceal, from dis- plus similis, like.
Proto-Indo-European
*sem-
Latin
dissimulō
Old French
dissembler
Middle English
dissemblen
English, today
dissemble
First attested in the beginning of the 15th century, in Middle English; Middle English dissemblen, borrowed from Old French dissembler, itself borrowed from Latin dissimulō and modified after sembler, semblance, etc. a doublet of dissimulate and dissimilate and dissimule. Displaced native Old English mīþan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA