pretense
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French pretensse, from Late Latin praetēnsus, past participle of Latin praetendō (“to pretend”), from prae- (“before”) + tendō (“to stretch”); see pretend.
Inflected forms:
form: pretenses
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: pretence
pos: noun
tags: alternative
UK
form: prætense
pos: noun
tags: alternative
archaic
Senses:
gloss: The action of pretending; false or simulated show or appearance; false or hypocritical assertion or representation.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: Affectation or ostentation of manner.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: She was a plain-speaking woman without a hint of pretense.
gloss: Intention or purpose not real but professed.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: with only a pretense of accuracy
gloss: An unsupported claim made or implied.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself.
They wished to demask hidden metaphysics, to demask the false pretenses of sentences purportively descriptive but de facto metaphysical or evaluative.
gloss: An insincere attempt to reach a specific condition or quality.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Intention; design.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: A very pretence and purpose of unkindness.
Synonyms: affectation denotes deception for the sake of escape from punishment
an awkward situation
false pretense
fiction
imitation
pretext
sham
subterfuge
Related words: pretend
pretender
pretension
pretentiosity
pretentious
pretentiousness
Derived words: pretensed
pretenseful
pretenseless
Translations: