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Crocodile tears are hypocritical tears or a hypocritical show of grief. The phrase is applied to a person who falsely puts on an appearance of grief. The origin of the phrase was the fabulous belief that crocodiles wept in order to attact their victims to the spot, or even shed tears over their prey while in the act of devouring it. In fact crocodiles do shed tears while swallowing their prey, but they do it for purely biological reasons.