All 10 Uses of
pretense
in
Middlemarch
- To Dorothea this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence.†
Chpt 1
- Celia, whose mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other people's pretensions much more readily.†
Chpt 1 *
- "But Fred gives me his honor that he has never borrowed money on the pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land.†
Chpt 2
- But now he may be no better than a Dissenter, and want to push aside my son on pretence of doctrine.†
Chpt 2
- The Vicar's frankness seemed not of the repulsive sort that comes from an uneasy consciousness seeking to forestall the judgment of others, but simply the relief of a desire to do with as little pretence as possible.†
Chpt 2
- It's all a pretence, if the truth was known, about their being forced to take one way.†
Chpt 6
- She is such a very nice girl—no airs, no pretensions, though on a level with the first.†
Chpt 7
- His flushed effort while talking to Mr. Farebrother—his effort after the cynical pretence that all ways of getting money are essentially the same, and that chance has an empire which reduces choice to a fool's illusion—was but the symptom of a wavering resolve, a benumbed response to the old stimuli of enthusiasm.†
Chpt 7
- "I could not be expected to give her up," he said, after a moment's hesitation: it was not a case for any pretence of generosity.†
Chpt 7
- She'll never again think me anything but a paltry pretence—too nice to take heaven except upon flattering conditions, and yet selling myself for any devil's change by the sly.†
Chpt 8
Definition:
-
(pretense) a false appearance or action to help one pretendeditor's notes: This is sometimes seen in the expression "false pretense" or "false pretenses" which is just emphasizing that behavior or actions do not reflect the true situation.