Adjacent Words

pretentious definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction; "a pretentious country house"; "a pretentious fraud"; "a pretentious scholarly edition" [ant: unpretentious]
2: intended to attract notice and impress others; "an ostentatious sable coat" [syn: ostentatious, pretentious] [ant: unostentatious, unpretending, unpretentious]
3: (of a display) tawdry or vulgar [syn: ostentatious, pretentious]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: French prétentieux, from prétention pretension, from Medieval Latin pretention-, pretentio, from Latin praetendere Date: 1832 1. characterized by pretension: as a. making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) <the pretentious fraud who assumes a love of culture that is alien to him — Richard Watts> b. expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature <pretentious language> <pretentious houses> 2. making demands on one's skill, ability, or means ; ambitious <the pretentious daring of the Green Mountain Boys in crossing the lake — American Guide Series: Vermont> Synonyms: see showy • pretentiously adverb • pretentiousness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 making an excessive claim to great merit or importance. 2 ostentatious. Derivatives: pretentiously adv. pretentiousness n. Etymology: F prétentieux (as PRETENSION)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Pretentious Pre*ten"tious, a. [Cf. F. pr['e]tentieux. See Pretend.] Full of pretension; disposed to lay claim to more than is one's; presuming; assuming. -- Pre*ten"tious*ly, adv. -- Pre*ten"tious*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you say that someone or something is pretentious, you mean that they try to seem important or significant, but you do not think that they are. His response was full of pretentious nonsense... ADJ [disapproval] • pretentiousness He has a tendency towards pretentiousness.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. [Recent.] Assuming, presuming, conceited, vain, priggish.

Moby Thesaurus

Gongoresque, Gongoristic, Johnsonian, Marinistic, affected, ambitious, arrogant, artificial, arty, aureate, bedizened, big, big-sounding, bombastic, chichi, classy, convoluted, declamatory, elaborate, elaborated, elevated, euphuistic, exaggerated, extravagant, fancy, feigned, flamboyant, flaming, flashy, flaunting, flossy, flowery, fulsome, garish, gassy, gaudy, grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, haughty, high and mighty, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-hat, high-sounding, high-swelling, high-toned, highfalutin, highfaluting, histrionic, hoity-toity, hyperelegant, imposing, inflated, inkhorn, insincere, la-di-da, labyrinthine, lexiphanic, lofty, lurid, magniloquent, maniere, mannered, meretricious, mincing, orotund, ostentatious, overacted, overblown, overdone, overelaborate, overelegant, overinvolved, overnice, overrefined, overwrought, peacockish, peacocky, pedantic, pompous, precieuse, precieux, precious, put-on, rhetorical, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, showy, snobbish, snotty, sonorous, splashy, stagy, stilted, studied, superficial, swank, swollen, tall, theatrical, tony, too-too, tortuous, tumid, turgid, unnatural, utopian, vainglorious, vaunting, visionary, windy