pose#

pose vb *propose, propound

Analogous words: *ask, question, query: *puzzle, confound: baffle (see FRUSTRATE)

pose n

1 Pose, air, affectation, mannerism are comparable when they mean an adopted rather than a natural way of speaking and behaving.

Pose implies an attitude deliberately assumed in order to impress others or to call attention to oneself; it may be applied to opinions, policies, declared beliefs, and preferences as well as to manners

{

his reticence is just a pose

}

{

identified himself with the Great Commoner, and this seemed to me purely a pose, which verged upon demagoguery— Edmund Wilson

}

Air in its more general related use may come close to demeanor (compare demeanor under BEARING) but as compared with pose it, especially in the plural airs, definitely implies artificiality and the intent to give a false appearance, and usually also implies a vulgar pretense of breeding, of grandeur, or of superiority

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the red-headed singer . . . dropped her patronizing air, offered her scotch from the bottle— Wouk

}

{

there was no doubt at all that she had acquired insufferable airs— Stafford

}

Affectation usually designates a specific trick of speech or behavior of one who obviously puts on airs or whose trick impresses others as deliberately assumed and insincere

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regarded carrying cigarettes in a case as an affectation— Richard Burke

}

{

agitation for opera in English seems a particular affectation to those who have come to know the works in the original— Dale Warren

}

Mannerism designates an acquired peculiarity or eccentricity in speech or behavior; it seldom implies insincerity, but it nearly always connotes habit or potential habit. A mannerism consciously assumed becomes thereby also an affectation; what begins as an affectation may become an unconscious and habitual trick of behavior, and so a mannerism

{

he giggled, and she was surprised she had not noticed this mannerism in him before— Purdy

}

{

those little mannerisms of hers . . . especially the way she has of pointing a finger at me to emphasize a phrase— Dahl

}

2 *posture, attitude