English > pretentious: 3 senses > adjective 1| Meaning | making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction. |
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| Examples | - "a pretentious country house"
- "a pretentious fraud"
- "a pretentious scholarly edition"
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| Narrower | artsy-craftsy, arty-crafty | pretentiously artistic |
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| arty | showily imitative of art or artists |
| grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous | Puffed up with vanity |
| grandiose, hifalutin, highfalutin, highfaluting, hoity-toity, la-di-da | affectedly genteel |
| high-flown, high-sounding, inflated | pretentious (especially with regard to language or ideals) |
| jumped-up | (British informal) upstart |
| nouveau-riche, parvenu, parvenue, upstart | characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position |
| sententious | abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing |
| sesquipedalian | given to the overuse of long / long words |
| See also | tasteless | lacking aesthetic or social taste |
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| Opposite | unpretentious | lacking pretension or affectation |
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| Spanish | pretencioso |
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| Nouns | pretense | pretending with intention to deceive / deceive |
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| pretentiousness | the quality of being pretentious / pretentious (behaving or speaking in such a manner as to create a false / false appearance of great importance or worth) |
| Adverbs | pretentiously | in a pretentious / pretentious manner |
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