PRETENSE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Pretense

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/pritˈɛns/ Listen

noun

Pretence, Pretense n.

1.

The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. "Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power." "I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford."

2.

The act of holding out, or offering, to others something false or feigned; presentation of what is deceptive or hypocritical; deception by showing what is unreal and concealing what is real; false show; simulation; as, pretense of illness; under pretense of patriotism; on pretense of revenging Caesar's death.

3.

That which is pretended; false, deceptive, or hypocritical show, argument, or reason; pretext; feint. "Let not the Trojans, with a feigned pretense Of proffered peace, delude the Latian prince."

4.

Intention; design. (Obs.) "A very pretense and purpose of unkindness." Note: See the Note under Offense.

Synonyms: Mask; appearance; color; show; pretext; excuse. Pretense, Pretext. A pretense is something held out as real when it is not so, thus falsifying the truth. A pretext is something woven up in order to cover or conceal one's true motives, feelings, or reasons. Pretext is often, but not always, used in a bad sense.

See images of 'Pretense'

Etymology of 'Pretense'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pretense" Quotes from Famous Books

... as mention is made of individual officers and men there is no pretense that the list is complete. Those whose names appear in the text were selected as types. Hundreds of others were equally deserving. The same remark applies to the portraits. These are representative faces. The list could be ...

— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... curious inversion. It is a fact of common observance that in this lower middle class there is no pretense of leisure on the part of the head of the household. Through force of circumstances it has fallen into disuse. But the middle-class wife still carries on the business of vicarious leisure, for the good name of the household and its master. In descending ...

— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat. Again he heard the old operatic airs, and again she came tripping toward him, leaning on her old father's arm, and pretending (with such a charming, delicious, serio-comic pretense) to be listening to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed cavalry officers. Again the old fancy came back that she was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly uses, and that to approach her was to walk ...

— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... in guiding across the oceans and beneath his banner the magnificent ship upon which everyone's welfare depends.-Under the ascendancy of such an idea he was allowed to do everything. By fair means or foul, he so reduced ancient authorities as to make them a fragment, a pretense, a souvenir. The nobles are simply his officials or his courtiers. Since the Concordat he nominates the dignitaries of the Church. The States-General were not convoked for a hundred and seventy-five years; the provincial assemblies, which continue to subsist, do nothing but apportion the taxes; ...

— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... is the "Indian Land in Severalty Bill." It pretends to be in the interest of the Indians, but that pretense is a fraud. It is wholly in the interest of railroad companies, land syndicates, and ...

— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

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