Pretense

/ˈpɹiːtɛns/ · noun

Meaning

(countable or uncountable) The action of pretending; false or simulated show or appearance; false or hypocritical assertion or representation..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable or uncountable) The action of pretending; false or simulated show or appearance; false or hypocritical assertion or representation.
2. (uncountable) Affectation or ostentation of manner.
3. Intention or purpose not real but professed.
4. An unsupported claim made or implied.
5. An insincere attempt to reach a specific condition or quality.
6. (obsolete) Intention; design.

Example Sentences

He visited the king under the pretense of friendliness.

"Lady Little", the title that she used, was just a pretense.

She appeared to weep uncontrollably, but it was all pretense.

Great armaments were, therefore, put on foot in Moravia and Bohemia, while the elector of Saxony, under a pretence of military parade, drew together about ſixteen thouſand men, which were poſted in a ſtrong ſituation at Pirna.

The London Saturday Review pays the following well-merited compliment to two American lady authors: “Very few of even our best writers can compass a book for the young which shall be all that it ought to be, avoiding, on the one hand, extravagant sensationality and a standard so high as to be outside human nature altogether; on the other, vapid silliness, which no grown girl can accept as fitting food for her mind at all, and which irritates, as all pretense and make-believe must.[…]”

There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. [...] Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office, under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams.

In pilot work we have used the method described in Experiment 2 on children′s memory for the content of their own false beliefs and pretence and asked them to differentiate between belief and pretence.

That part of education that turned up in the latest phase of our argument, the cross-examination of the empty pretence of wisdom, is none other, we must declare, than the true-blooded kind of sophistry.

Synonyms for pretense

Antonyms for pretense

Related Words

Word Forms

• pretenses
• pretence
• prætense

Usage Notes

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