PRETENSE • DICTIONARY ONE.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.

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Etymology of 'Pretense'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pretense" Quotes from Famous Books

... co-conspirators because my woman's wit is sharper than thy greed. We are confidants because I know too much of thy misdeeds. We are going to succeed because I laugh at thy fat fears, and am never deceived for a moment by pretense of sanctity ...

— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook ...

— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... of business rents an office in a reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show," he says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind"—an observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family Bible, on ...

— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... cruel conduct, and I would confess, without a wish to conceal one single fact, the sins which wrought such mischief and have brought such strange punishments. I can only do so by telling the story of how one sin led to another, until all culminated in that fearful fraud, the pretense ...

— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... would never let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has neither sense nor truth. ...

— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

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