1183—Type 'He affected to approve of the scheme'
Verbs of feigning and affecting that take an infinitive as object are: affect, counterfeit, dissemble, feign, pretend.
Examples with dissimulate, simulate and sham have not been met with. There are no instances with an infinitive not preceded by to.
With to:
1412-20 Lydgate, Troy Bk. (1555) II, s She vnto some pretendeth to be trewe (OED).
c1522 St. Th. More, Wks. (1557) 82 H12, [they] faine to haue the vertues that they lack.
1536 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 204, Yf he had pretended to suffre payne & had feled no smarte.
1548 Udall, Paraphr. Erasmus upon the New Test. 110 b, False teachers . . . countrefeiting to preache my gospell (OED).
1563-87 John Foxe, Actes & Monuments (1684) II, 79, I, He that hath no Faith, and yet faineth or pretendeth to haue.
1590-06 Spenser, F.Q.II. I, 9, Feigning . . . in every limb to quake.
1600 Shakesp. A. Y. L. IV, iii, 174, Take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.
1679 Sheffield & Dryden, Essay on Sat. 70, How that affects to laugh, how this to weep.
1693 Dryden, The Satires (ed. Scott/S.) Notes 136, Egeria . . . with whom Numa feigned to converse by night (Sod.).
1749 Fielding, Tom Jones II, VI, He was ignorant, or at least pretended to be so.
1753 Smollett, Ct. FAthom (1748) 138, I, he affected to approve of the scheme.
1778 Han. More Florio II, 185, Yet feigned to praise the gothic treat.
1813 T. Busby, tr. Lucretious iv, 913, Fancy . . . Lost friends, past joys, dissembleth to restore.
1847 Sir Arthur Helps, Friends in Council I, 10, Pretending to agree with the world when you do not.
1816 Scott, Antiquary (1879) II, xxv, 52, He tired, or affected to tire.
1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. II, xvi, Tremlow feigns to compare the portrait.
1879 M. Arnold, Irish Cath. (in: Mixed Essays) 100, I have never affected to be surprised . . . at the antipathy of the Irish to us.
With for to:
c1387 Trevisa, Higden I, 91, Þey feyneÞ for to flee and sodeynliche ; turneÞ and riseÞ aᴣen (MMED).
-- F. Th. Visser. An Historical Syntax of the English Language, Volume III, p. 1321. E. J. Brill: Leiden, 1969.