PRETENSION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Pretension

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/pritˈɛnʃən/ Listen

noun

Pretension n.

The act of pretending, or laying claim; the act of asserting right or title. "The arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussion."

A claim made, whether true or false; a right alleged or assumed; a holding out the appearance of possessing a certain character; as, pretensions to scholarship. "This was but an invention and pretension given out by the Spaniards." "Men indulge those opinions and practices that favor their pretensions."

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Etymology of 'Pretension'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pretension" Quotes from Famous Books

... course to exist amongst the positive objects of every boarding-school. Yet so far are the laws and arrangements of existing schools from at all aiding and promoting this object, that their very utmost pretension is—that they do not injure it. Much injustice and oppression, for example, take place in the intercourse of all boys with each other; and in most schools 'the stern edict against bearing tales,' causes this to go unredressed (p. 78): on the other ...

— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey--Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... and nothing else. Something he had not known in his life before. Previously there had been always some personal quality, some sort of personal tenderness. But here, none. She did not seem to want it. She seemed to hate it, indeed. No, all he felt was stark, naked desire, without a single pretension. True enough, his last experience had been a warning to him. His desire and himself likewise had broken rather disastrously under the proving. But not finally broken. He was ready again. And with all the sheer powerful insolence of desire he looked forward to the evening. For ...

— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... "I make no pretension to eloquence, Mr. Townsend. I was merely recalling to Miss Hamlyn's attention the beautiful lines of our immortal poet, Owen Meredith, which run, ...

— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... downwards into the temperate latitudes, that the desire for aggrandizement raged. The Portuguese considered that the natural southern frontier of their great colony was the River Plate. The Spaniards, having already possession of the northern bank, fiercely resented any such pretension, with the result that the Banda Oriental, by which name the Republic of Uruguay is still locally known, as well as the southern part of the Province of Paraguay, became the scene of many battles. It may be said that the warfare between the two nations continued ...

— South America • W. H. Koebel

... been impartial and scientific, this trifling difference might easily have been overcome and the dangers of reckless breeding insisted upon. But beneath all this wordy pretension and economic jargon, we detect another aim. That is the unconscious dramatization of human society into the "class conflict." Nothing was overlooked that might sharpen and accentuate this "conflict." Marx ...

— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

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