fake [L17th] The term ‘Ben Fakers’ appears once in a reference book of the late 17th century, as slang describing counterfeiters, and faker ‘maker’ once about the same date, but then all trace of the terms disappears from our written record until 1810. However, there are earlier words feak and feague, meaning ‘to beat’, and fake may be a development of these. They were all underworld slang, words it is always difficult to trace the origin and history of. Fake did not become a mainstream word in British English until the mid 20th century. It was more widely used in the USA, and the term fake news has been in use there since at least the 1890s.