pretense

CEFRC1

/ˈpɹiːtɛns/

noun

Türkçe translations

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In plain English

01
noun
An attempt to make something appear true when it is not.
02
noun
Extra detail
Affectation or ostentation of manner.

Examples

He made a pretense of knowing my father.
"Lady Little", the title that she used, was just a pretense.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

Intention or purpose not real but professed.
The action of pretending; false or simulated show or appearance; false or hypocritical assertion or representation.
An unsupported claim made or implied.

More examples

In context

He visited the king under the pretense of friendliness.
She appeared to weep uncontrollably, but it was all pretense.
Let's drop the pretense.

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

His friendly attitude was just a blank to hide his true feelings.

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Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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.
1771, [Oliver] Goldsmith, “George II. (Continued.)”, in The History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II. […], volume IV, London: […] T[homas] Davies, […]...
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.[…]”
1870 October 20, The Revolution, volume VI, number 16 (whole 146), New York, N.Y., page 245, column 2
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.
1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, pages 10–11
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.
1995, Charlie Lewis, Peter Mitchell, Children′s Early Understanding Of Mind: Origins And Development, page 281
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.
2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 231b

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Origin

noun

Borrowed from Middle French pretensse, from Late Latin praetēnsus, past participle of Latin praetendō (“to pretend”), from prae- (“before”) + tendō (“to stretch”); see pretend.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

His friendly attitude was just a blank— to hide his true feelings.

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Origin

noun

His friendly attitude was just a blank to hide his true feelings.