Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A specious allegation; a pretext.
- noun A claim to something, such as a skill or profession.
- noun The advancing of such a claim.
- noun The unwarranted assumption that one is deserving of merit, or behavior indicative of such an assumption; pretentiousness.
- noun An instance of pretentiousness.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of putting forth a claim (specifically, a false one), particularly to merit, dignity, or importance; pretentiousness.
- noun Hence, a claim; an alleged or assumed right, not necessarily false.
- noun A false representation; a pretext; a sham.
- noun An assertion; a proposition.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of pretending, or laying claim; the act of asserting right or title.
- noun A claim made, whether true or false; a right alleged or assumed; a holding out the appearance of possessing a certain character.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A claim or
aspiration to a particular status or quality. - noun
Pretentiousness .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the quality of being pretentious (behaving or speaking in such a manner as to create a false appearance of great importance or worth)
- noun a false or unsupportable quality
- noun the advancing of a claim
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Examples
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The moment this pretension is abandoned the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce mutually beneficial.
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As an engineer my tolerance for pretension is generally lower that that of the academics!
The Autobiography of Mister Litlove « Tales from the Reading Room
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A Reader's Manifesto: Whatever happens, the old American scorn for pretension is bound to reassert itself someday, and dear God, let it be soon.
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The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.
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A Reader's Manifesto: Whatever happens, the old American scorn for pretension is bound to reassert itself someday, and dear God, let it be soon.
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Conservative status pretension might work differently, but status pretension is status pretension, and as a general matter, because the vast majority of educationally-based upwardly mobile classes in this country is liberal, it applies well to liberal habits.
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The first target of Everett's satire is the writing of fiction itself, which is portrayed implicitly as an enterprise saturated in pretension and moribund assumptions.
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The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.
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The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.
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The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.
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