Meaning of pretense in English

Table of contents
  1. Pronunciation
  2. Noun
    1. Etymology
    2. Definitions

  1. Pronunciation

    /ˈpriˌtɛns/

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  1. Noun

    pretense

    Etymology

    late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French pretense, based on medieval Latin pretensus‘pretended’, alteration of Latin praetentus, from the verb praetendere (see pretend)

    Definitions

    1. the act of giving a false appearance

    Examples

    • « his conformity was only pretending »

    Derived terms

  2. 2. pretending with intention to deceive

    Derived terms

  3. 3. imaginative intellectual play
  4. 4. a false or unsupportable quality

    Derived terms

  5. 5. an artful or simulated semblance

    Examples

    • « under the guise of friendship he betrayed them »

Famous quotes

  • « To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame to copy faults is want of sense. »
    Charles Churchill
  • « Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government. »
    Thomas Sowell
  • « It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide. »
    Friedrich August von Hayek
  • « You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind. »
    Emmet Fox
  • « Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie and the workers want no lying. »
    Mikhail Bakunin

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