different between counterfeit vs unfounded

English

Etymology

Anglo-Norman countrefait, from Old French contrefait.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ka?n.t??f?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Adjective

counterfeit (not comparable)

1. False, especially of money; intended to deceive or carry appearance of being genuine.

2. Inauthentic.

3. Assuming the appearance of something; deceitful; hypocritical.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:fake

Translations

Noun

counterfeit (plural counterfeits)

1. A non-genuine article; a fake.
   • c.1597 William Shakespeare, Henry IV part I, Act II, scene 4:

   • 1971, Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150—750, Thames & Hudson LTD (2013 reprint), ?ISBN, page 53.

2. One who counterfeits; a counterfeiter.
3. (obsolete) That which resembles another thing; a likeness; a portrait; a counterpart.
   • 1590 Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene Book III, canto VIII:

4. (obsolete) An impostor; a cheat.
   • c.1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV part I, Act V, scene 4

Translations

Verb

counterfeit (third-person singular simple present counterfeits, present participle counterfeiting, simple past and past participle counterfeited)

1. (transitive) To falsely produce what appears to be official or valid; to produce a forged copy of.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To produce a faithful copy of.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To feign; to mimic.
   • 1770, Oliver Goldsmith, The Village Schoolmaster

4. (transitive, poker, usually "be counterfeited") Of a turn or river card, to invalidate a player's hand by making a better hand on the board.

Derived terms

• uncounterfeited

Translations

English

Etymology

un- +? founded

Adjective

unfounded (not comparable)

1. Having no strong foundation; not based on solid reasons or facts.

   Synonyms: baseless, groundless, ungrounded

   an unfounded report; unfounded fears

   • 1663, Gideon Harvey, Archelogia Philosophica Nova, or, New Principles of Philosophy, London: Samuel Thomson, “To the Reader,”^[1]

     […] my chiefest design ever since the seventeenth year of my age […] consisted in elaborating such demonstrations in Natural Philosophy, as might serve to unfold the natures of Beings in relation to the Art of Physick, hitherto so uncertain, blind, and unfounded on Art […]

   • 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, London: J. Johnson, Chapter 11, p. 61, footnote,^[2]

     […] such unfounded conjectures are best answered by neglect.

   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 18,^[3]

     The gloom of her first anticipations was proved to have been unfounded.

   • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 4,^[4]

     “He give a name,” said Mrs. Hall—an assertion which was quite unfounded—“but I didn’t rightly hear it.”

   • 1989, Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, Vintage International, 1990, “Day Three, Morning,” p. 137,^[5]

     […] the allegation that his lordship never allowed Jewish people to enter the house or any Jewish staff to be employed is utterly unfounded […]

2. Not having been founded or instituted.
   • 1980, Helen Louise Gardner, John Carey, English Renaissance studies (page 268)

     Even the great world as yet undiscovered, the cities as yet unfounded, and the history as yet unwritten, are lost: fallen from the beginning.

3. (obsolete) Bottomless.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 826-829,^[6]

     […] from them I go

     This uncouth errand sole, and one for all

     My self expose, with lonely steps to tread

     Th’ unfounded deep […]

   • 1685, William Clark, The Grand Tryal, or, Poetical Exercitations upon the Book of Job, Edinburgh, Part 3, Chapter 26, p. 210,^[7]

     He makes this Glob so spacious and fair

     Unfix’d, unprop’d, unfounded any where,

     Hang, like a Water-bubble in the Air.

Translations