Question

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.
Use context and your knowledge of word parts to determine the meaning of the word feigned as it is used in paragraph 3

Answer 1

In the context of the paragraph, the word "feigned" means "pretended" or "faked." The narrator describes how they have "feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity," suggesting that they intentionally acted in a way that did not reflect their true feelings or state of being. This behavior was a strategy to avoid engaging in intimate conversations that they felt were not wanted or would lead to uncomfortable revelations. The prefix "feign-" relates to pretending or simulating something.