'Pretension' definitions:
Definition of 'pretension'
(from WordNet)
noun
noun
The advancing of a claim; "his pretension to the crown"; "the town still puts forward pretensions as a famous resort"
noun
The quality of being pretentious (behaving or speaking in such a manner as to create a false appearance of great importance or worth) [syn: pretentiousness, pretension, largeness] [ant: unpretentiousness]
Definition of 'Pretension'
From: GCIDE
- Pretension \Pre*ten"sion\, n. [Cf. F. pr['e]tention. See Pretend, Tension.]
- 1. The act of pretending, or laying claim; the act of asserting right or title. [1913 Webster]
- The arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussion. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
- 2. A claim made, whether true or false; a right alleged or assumed; a holding out the appearance of possessing a certain character; as, pretensions to scholarship. [1913 Webster]
- This was but an invention and pretension given out by the Spaniards. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]
- Men indulge those opinions and practices that favor their pretensions. --L'Estrange. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'pretension'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- acting,
- affectation,
- affectedness,
- airs,
- airs and graces,
- alibi,
- ambitions,
- ambitiousness,
- apology,
- appearance,
- appurtenance,
- artificiality,
- aspiration,
- attitudinizing,
- authority,
- Barnumism,
- bedizenment,
- big talk,
- birthright,
- blind,
- bluff,
- bluffing,
- charade,
- cheating,
- claim,
- cloak,
- color,
- coloring,
- conjugal right,
- cover story,
- cover-up,
- deception,
- delusion,
- demand,
- device,
- disguise,
- dissemblance,
- dissembling,
- dissimulation,
- divine right,
- droit,
- due,
- excuse,
- facade,
- face,
- faculty,
- fakery,
- faking,
- false air,
- false front,
- false show,
- falsity,
- feigned belief,
- feigning,
- feint,
- flashiness,
- flatulence,
- flatulency,
- four-flushing,
- fraud,
- front,
- fulsomeness,
- garishness,
- gaudiness,
- gilt,
- gloss,
- grandiloquence,
- grandioseness,
- grandiosity,
- guise,
- handle,
- high-flown diction,
- humbug,
- humbuggery,
- hypocrisy,
- image,
- imposture,
- inalienable right,
- inflatedness,
- inflation,
- insincerity,
- interest,
- lame excuse,
- lexiphanicism,
- locus standi,
- loftiness,
- lofty affectations,
- luridness,
- magniloquence,
- make-believe,
- mannerism,
- mask,
- masquerade,
- mere rhetoric,
- mere show,
- meretriciousness,
- natural right,
- orotundity,
- ostensible motive,
- ostent,
- ostentation,
- ostentatious complexity,
- ostentatiousness,
- outward show,
- pageant,
- platitudinous ponderosity,
- playacting,
- polysyllabic profundity,
- pomposity,
- pompous prolixity,
- pompousness,
- pontification,
- poor excuse,
- pose,
- posing,
- posture,
- power,
- prerogative,
- prescription,
- presumptive right,
- pretending,
- pretense,
- pretensions,
- pretentiousness,
- pretext,
- proper claim,
- property right,
- prose run mad,
- protestation,
- prunes and prisms,
- public image,
- public motive,
- put-off,
- put-on,
- putting on airs,
- refuge,
- representation,
- rhetoric,
- rhetoricalness,
- right,
- screen,
- seeming,
- semblance,
- sensationalism,
- sententiousness,
- sham,
- show,
- showiness,
- simulacrum,
- simulation,
- smoke screen,
- speciousness,
- stalking-horse,
- stiltedness,
- stratagem,
- stylishness,
- subterfuge,
- swelling utterance,
- swollen phrase,
- swollenness,
- tall talk,
- title,
- tortuosity,
- tortuousness,
- trick,
- tumidity,
- tumidness,
- turgescence,
- turgidity,
- unnaturalness,
- varnish,
- veil,
- vested interest,
- vested right,
- window dressing