Pretension

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Related to pretensions: exhorter

Pretension

See also Hypocrisy.
Prey (See QUARRY.)
Pride (See BOASTFULNESS, EGOTISM, VANITY.)
Absolon
vain, officious parish clerk. [Br. Lit.: Canterbury Tales, “Miller’s Tale”]
Armado, Don Adriano
de his language inordinately disproportionate to his thought. [Br. Lit.: Love’s Labour’s Lost]
Chrononhotonthologos
king whose pomposity provoked a fatal brawl with his general. [Br. Lit.: Walsh Modern, 96]
Copper, Captain
pretends to great wealth; jewels are counterfeit. [Br. Lit.: Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Walsh Modern, 105]
Coriolanus
stiff-necked Roman aristocrat; contemptuous of the common people. [Br. Lit.: Coriolanus]
Dodsworth, Fran
shallow industrialist’s wife ostentatiously gallivants about Europe. [Am. Lit.: Dodsworth]
Dogberry
ostentatiously and fastidiously examines prisoners. [Br. Lit.: Much Ado About Nothing]
euphuism
style overly rich with alliteration, figures, and Latinisms. [Br. Lit.: Euphues, Espy, 127]
Isle of Lanterns
inhabited by pretenders to knowledge. [Fr. Lit.: Pantagruel]
Jourdain, Monsieur
parvenu grandiosely affects gentleman’s mien. [Fr. Lit.: The Bourgeois Gentilhomme]
Madelon and Cathos
their suitors had to be flamboyant. [Fr. Lit.: Les Precieuses Ridicules]
Melody, Cornelius
self-deluded tavern-keeper boasts about his upper-class past to maintain a show of importance. [Am. Drama: Eugene O’Neill A Touch of the Poet in Benét, 737]
morning glory
symbol of affectation; flower of September. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 175; Kunz, 330]
Parolles
boastful villain of affected sentiment and knowledge. [Br. Lit.: All’s Well That Ends Well]
Pendennis
enters university “posing as moneyed aristocrat.” [Br. Lit.: Pendennis]
Verdurin, M. & Mme.
nouveau-riche couple strive for social eminence. [Fr. Lit.: Proust Remembrance of Things Past]
willow herb
indicates affectation. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 178]
Yvetot, King
of affects grandeur; kingdom is but a village. [Fr. Legend: Brewer Dictionary, 1173]
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References in periodicals archive ?
Former SDLP leader Mr Durkan said: "The Real IRA's words are intended to intimidate everyone but their pretensions to legitimacy will impress no one.
TERRORISTS IN WARNING; Threat to police and Queen
26) Pretensions to kingship were dashed on the rocks of colonial conquest.
Custom and the politics of sovereignty in South Africa
Nowadays, of course, you drop down into Melbourne (after 24 hours of sitting still) and within an hour or two you've abandoned the guidebook and you're sampling Victorian shiraz along with the usual cronies, eavesdropping that special bad-mouthing that marks the chat in any city with pretensions to architectural quality.
Peter Cook: Peter Cook explores the buzzing architecture and viticulture of Melbourne and Tel Aviv
They have few pupils, little money and grand pretensions.
Boylan, Clare. Emma Brown
These combinations grow "curiouser and curiouser," raucously undermining pretensions to seriousness without tipping over into flippancy, winkingly suggesting that levity is too often underrated.
Sophie von Hellermann: Greene Naftali Gallery
They are the basis of a concept car that will be seen in the metal for the first time at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September Of similar dimensions to Ford's Focus, the newcomer is taking the name of Sportback to emphasise its sporting pretensions.
Motoring: Insight into new Lancer range
An excuse for dissecting the life and times of the weird Poe, it's easier to forgive the literary pretensions than it is the complete lack of character chemistry.
Book reviews: Bin It: ENTOMBED by Linda Fairstein (Little, Brown, pounds 12.99) HH
The first is a closer look at Savoy itself, mainly in the period under Carlo Emanuele I (1580-1630) whose dynastic pretensions shaped the course of Savoy's diplomacy in the greater affairs of Europe.
Dynasty and Diplomacy in the Court of Savoy: Political Culture and the Thirty Years' War
The Jesus Seminar in general finds the historical Jesus to be innocent of messianic pretensions, innocent of claims of divinity or miraculous birth.
Christianity without God
And some conservatives--those few who value democracy and are free of the aristocratic pretensions and longings of the National Review crowd--know this.
The con in conservative. (Letters)
Blacks are often confronted in American life with such devastating examples of the white descent from dignity; devastating not only because of the enormity of white pretensions, but because this swift and graceless descent would seem to indicate that white people have no principles whatsoever.
The fire still burns: a new one-man show and television documentary remind us that the life and work of James Baldwin continue to resonate
Wayne Lanham, president of Texas Metals & Recycling (TMR), Abilene, Texas, has no pretensions about the scope of his business.
Taking tech further. (Installations)

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