Pretension#

Pretension (see also CLAIM, AMBITION) is rarely used in place of pretense as a concrete act, appearance, or statement, but it is often used in the sense of false show or the evidence of it, with, however, somewhat differing implications. Where pretense in this general sense often implies hypocrisy or intentional deceit, pretension suggests rather an unwarranted assumption that one possesses certain desirable qualities or powers, and therefore more often implies overweening conceit or self- deception

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his disdain of affectation and prudery was magnificent. He hated all pretension save his own pretension— Mencken

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this mannerism which has become so offensive ... is Roslyn's social pretension. Perhaps I should say intellectual pretension. She entertains people as if she were conducting a salon— Mailer

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annoyed with . . . the pretensions of simplicity and homeliness in her parlor— Che ever

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Make-believe applies usually to pretense or pretenses that arise not so much out of a desire to give others a false impression as out of a strong or vivid imagination (as that of children or poets who like to take what their fancies create as real or as true)

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in children, the love of make-believe usually expresses itself in games

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The term is occasionally used to denote the acceptance against one's better judgment of something manifestly unreal or untrue because of some power in the thing itself or in its accompaniments

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tells us that the make-believe of the stage is a higher reality than life outside— Bentley

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Analogous words: humbug, fake, sham, fraud, deceit, deception, *imposture: affectation, *pose, air, mannerism

pretension 1 *claim, title, pretense

Analogous words: *right, privilege, prerogative: assertion, affirmation, declaration, protestation (see corresponding verbs at ASSERT)

2 *pretense, make-believe

Analogous words: *hypocrisy, sanctimony, cant: dissimulation, duplicity, guile, *deceit

3 *ambition, aspiration

Analogous words: hoping or hope, expectation (see corresponding verbs at EXPECT): dream, vision, *fancy