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

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Examples

  • 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.

    The Civil War in America 1861

  • 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 2009

  • 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.

    SF Tidbits for 8/29/09 2009

  • The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.

    Moving to Matzatlan in 1 yr 2009

  • 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.

    August 2009 2009

  • 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.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Brie Factor 2010

  • 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.

    October 2009 2009

  • The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.

    Moving to Matzatlan in 1 yr 2009

  • The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.

    Moving to Matzatlan in 1 yr 2009

  • The almost complete lack of pretension is wonderful, though you can certainly find a bit of that in the gated communities.

    Moving to Matzatlan in 1 yr 2009

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