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pretense
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show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • On Smith Island to the south of us there was no high school, not even the pretense of one that we had on Rass.   (source)
    pretense = an appearance to help one pretend
  • He no longer looked at me, no longer made any pretense of telling the truth.   (source)
    pretense = appearance or action (to help pretend)
  • Bryan felt it as though he'd actually peeled off layer after layer of pretense, defense, disguise.   (source)
    pretense = appearances or actions to help one pretend
  • Burn right into my brain, burn through my pathetic teeth-clenching tough-guy pretensions.   (source)
  • I don't see how we can keep up the pretense past the arrival date of this next ship.   (source)
    pretense = appearance that helps to pretend something
  • Meo made no pretense of not knowing him.   (source)
    pretense = appearance or action to help one pretend
  • He had stopped his pretense of working; he was standing before her, arms akimbo, dark eyes demanding.   (source)
    pretense = a false appearance or action to help one pretend
  • Now a good many of the guests have finished, and, since there is no pretense of ceremony, the banquet begins to break up.   (source)
  • I became in an instant as much of a pretense as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims.   (source)
  • Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare and have settled their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore,--by single combat;   (source)
    pretensions = deceitful appearances or actions
  • He could not know that for all my pretenses—my makeup, my new clothes, my china place settings— this is who I was.†   (source)
  • He ignored her, and she admired his perfected pretense of not needing good-bye.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, I'm relieved that we can stop the pretense of being friends.†   (source)
  • He rounded up the officers and hounded them across the bridge and into Tokyo, on the pretense of retrieving firewood from bombed-out houses.†   (source)
  • Turtle paused in a pretense of letting the heirs mull over her last words, trying to figure out what to do next.†   (source)
  • It no longer had the courage of its own pretensions.†   (source)
  • His mother had given up any pretense of eating.†   (source)
  • The Toucan continued listing the virtues of nudity, how being naked took away all pretenses and left others to see her for who she really was.†   (source)
  • Eventually, he had worked up the nerve to invite her out, perhaps under the pretense of discussing some matter of ideological interest.†   (source)
  • Under the pretense of wanting to phone his family, he went to a post office outside the gates of Lubeck and had himself connected to the shipping company in Bremen.†   (source)
  • Instead of answering, the person gave up all pretense of stealth and started running, crashing through the forest line around the clearing of the graveyard, circling toward the spot where Thomas stood.†   (source)
  • You and your Ministry of Magic have lured me here under false pretenses, Dumbledore!†   (source)
  • I wonder if they know that he was an Erudite once; that under all the pretense of Dauntless recklessness and even brutality, he is more like an Erudite than anything else.†   (source)
  • You will see for yourself, Laila jan. She is sturdy, for one thing, a good worker, and without pretensions.†   (source)
  • I'm tired of Lee's noble pretensions.†   (source)
  • Those two towns had both once had hopes, or pretensions, so their main streets were four lanes and wider: old storefronts barely cast shadows a quarter of the way across the glaring expanses.†   (source)
  • She'd managed to convince him to give her a tour under the pretense of extreme boredom—when, in fact, she'd used every moment to plot a dozen escape routes from her room.†   (source)
  • "You have been here under false pretenses."†   (source)
  • "I was sent here under false pretense."†   (source)
  • He made no pretense of not understanding me.†   (source)
  • It was a pretense, his dithering refusal—he was one of the most confident people she had ever met.†   (source)
  • They were about to take their seats when a young gentleman, under the pretense of introducing himself to Dean Liddell, approached.†   (source)
  • Her eyes are wide open, searching, and when her gaze alights on Vivian's face, it is startling in its intensity, stripped of any pretense or convention.†   (source)
  • That would shatter her pretense of calm and composure.†   (source)
  • Ned had last seen the king nine years before during Balon Greyjoy's rebellion, when the stag and the direwolf had joined to end the pretensions of the self-proclaimed King of the Iron Islands.†   (source)
  • But indoors, it was much too warm for comfort; the pool was dry, with a few inches of sand at the bottom, and there was no pretense of a yard, not even cactuses.†   (source)
  • Evaluator One, who sounded so sweet when she offered me the water, has lost all pretense of friendliness.†   (source)
  • HARRY: Time to cut the pretense, Albus.†   (source)
  • "Yes," I answered in a polite tone, dropping my pretense.†   (source)
  • I sent her away from him on every pretense I knew.†   (source)
  • I am tired of its pagan pretensions and false histories.†   (source)
  • Following the same instinct that had prompted me to lie to Mike, I called Jessica on the pretense of wishing her luck at the dance.†   (source)
  • Coach O actually didn't share the social pretensions of his employer.†   (source)
  • Mae saw that Gina was reading the message, too, making no pretense of doing otherwise.†   (source)
  • He had dropped all pretense of questioning me on my underground activities and seemed especially to enjoy hearing about my childhood.†   (source)
  • I liked the move because for the first time I didn't have to share a room with Jim, who never made any pretense of liking me or wanting me around.†   (source)
  • A moral freeze: I couldn't decide, I couldn't act, I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity.†   (source)
  • She is traveling under false pretenses, which are easily penetrated by the allseeing Ereshkigal.†   (source)
  • Despite being a multibillionaire, J. R. Simplot has few pretensions.†   (source)
  • , Webster's New Collegiate Make-believe: Pretense or pretend.†   (source)
  • He shows no pretense of good cheer, and I figure he and Jody have talked.†   (source)
  • Your dedication is a pretense?†   (source)
  • Only then, when it was too late, and Paradise Pickles slumped softly to the floor without so much as a murmur or even the pretense of resistance, did Comrade Pillai realize that what he really needed was the process of war more than the outcome of victory.†   (source)
  • Soon again there was silence and her face, though remaining soft, took on a fiery intensity, as if she was able to peer deep inside of him, past the pretenses and facades, down to the places that are rarely, if ever, spoken of.†   (source)
  • "You thought," Kote said derisively, dropping all pretense of a smile.†   (source)
  • Nathaniel is refreshingly uninhibited and without pretense, uttering whatever pops into his head.†   (source)
  • I thought we'd dispensed with your pretense of innocence, Jonathan.†   (source)
  • He rode it four times a day, twice to go to the office, twice to return home, and sometimes when his reading was real, and most of the time when it was pretense, he would take the first steps, at least, toward a future tryst.†   (source)
  • This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions.†   (source)
  • Marley, never one to get hung up on pretenses, seemed unimpressed.†   (source)
  • Ishmael suspected this was pretense.†   (source)
  • She should drive down to the capital on the pretense of seeing the exhibit at the Colombian embassy and refuse to leave.†   (source)
  • Then I explained that I didn't like her because she was mean and petty and full of pretense.†   (source)
  • The Great Square was filled with common people excited about the coming wedding and anniversary, and they all heard it too, and no one even made the pretense of not being scared, but, again, none of them knew at all what it might have been.†   (source)
  • The HVAC patrol, which had been called in on the pretense of humane incarceration, was working so slowly that Jordan figured they'd master their trade just in time for the snow to start falling again outside.†   (source)
  • He, too, was bored, and found Jane's pretensions intolerable.†   (source)
  • There was not even a pretense that we had to work.†   (source)
  • They've usually run ahead on the pretense of making warm-ups or an important pregame meeting.†   (source)
  • The cat had stopped short and was licking one paw with a pretense of nonchalance.†   (source)
  • I think the time has come to drop our pretenses, Roran Garrowsson, and talk openly and without deception.†   (source)
  • When I didn't respond, he snuck an arm past my shoulder, on the pretense of sorting through my work, and pressed me into his chest.†   (source)
  • Ever since the Sunday morning of the automobile ride, Shade Buckheath had been making elaborate pretense of having forgotten that such a person as Johnnie Consadine existed.†   (source)
  • Or make a pretense of bargaining.†   (source)
  • Of course she had written my name on her scroll, I knew that, yet hearing her say it aloud tore away a comforting pretense of anonymity.†   (source)
  • He made a pretense of walking up the bank as if nothing was wrong, but his legs had no life in them and he was forced to drop to his knees and crawl up, which only added embarrassment to his misery, the bank being scarcely three feet high and little more than a slope.†   (source)
  • I went home and did my reading, then I visited my doctor, making an appointment with the pretense that I wanted a regular checkup.†   (source)
  • Cole had earlier that evening directed her deputies to mass-evict all of them, on the pretense of unlawful trespass.†   (source)
  • Conversing under false pretenses in front of our brothers?†   (source)
  • As the daughter of the groom, I could hardly keep up the pretense that I spoke only Ayorthaian.†   (source)
  • But the pretense—going on your arm to the embassy ball, visiting your office and the guards saying, "Good morning, good morning, Madame Gallimard" — the pretense …. was very good indeed.†   (source)
  • I answer in as few words as possible and he nods, knowing we're done with the pretense.†   (source)
  • I needed the pretense that inside the house I was still the same person I'd always been.†   (source)
  • And I made no pretense with her of being an ordinary creature.†   (source)
  • Garcia was very busy, but he never let a day go by without seeing Alba, alternating unbridled violence with the pretense that he was her good friend.†   (source)
  • The captain was piqued, but managed to carry on with a pretense of optimism.†   (source)
  • In Yongming County, all women who want a healthy child steal outright—but with the pretense of covertness—a pair of shoes from the goddess's altar.†   (source)
  • He wondered for a moment if she had any idea that he and Henry had seen it last year under the pretense of watching a nice, severely-lacking-blood-and-gore spy movie instead.†   (source)
  • But the details were beyond a child: the fine arbor of blood vessels on his cheeks; muttonchop sideburns dyed bootpolish black; the white ring of arcus senilis around his pupils; gray eyebrows that betrayed his pretense at youthfulness.†   (source)
  • People are just as celebrity-crazed as anywhere, but New Yorkers—or at least the ones who consider themselves sophisticates and loiter along the kind of SoHo block I'm standing on now—put on this pretense that they don't care, even as they stare out from their three-hundred-dollar shades.†   (source)
  • The Buckleys lived far below their pretensions.†   (source)
  • "Callate, there she is!" he exclaimed to his friends who lost all pretense of hiding and gathered so close to him that they nearly shoved him off the curb.†   (source)
  • "Justice of Toren One Esk," I corrected, dropping all pretense of a Gerentate accent, or human expression.†   (source)
  • I had spent the afternoon preparing, leaving the office on a pretense of illness to avoid having to attend the celebration.†   (source)
  • GEORGE III had been twenty-two when, in 1760, he succeeded to the throne, and to a remarkable degree he remained a man of simple tastes and few pretensions.†   (source)
  • Then, without any explanation of why he changed his mind and without any pretense that by talking about this war he could somehow excuse the way he lived, he told me one last story.†   (source)
  • Paolo and Davinia something-or-other, with pretensions to nobility, I believe.†   (source)
  • Björck had hired Teleborian to lock Salander up in a psychiatric hospital for children under the pretense that she was mentally deranged.†   (source)
  • He imagined that anyone he encountered would perceive at once that he had returned under false pretenses.†   (source)
  • The "Amen, brothers" and "Yes, Jesus" were his permission to take that short hop from the heart to the soul and lay all pretense of gentleness aside.†   (source)
  • The boys stopped short, exchanged looks and dropped all pretense of innocence.†   (source)
  • By dawn, Max had abandoned all pretenses at driving the team.†   (source)
  • His chin was lifted, and he wore a look that Deo knew well, a mixture of dignity and tight-lipped amusement at his own pretensions to dignity.†   (source)
  • If we get separated there's not much hope of us ever meeting anywhere, but I need to keep up the pretense of hope because that may be all we have.†   (source)
  • She saw him and said dryly, guiltily, in apology, "I'm sorry, Mr. Rearden," not attempting the futile pretense of hiding her face.†   (source)
  • But it is a vital, frisky city unburdened by the pretensions and the genealogical sinuosities of Charleston.†   (source)
  • I excuse myself from the bicycling under the pretense of tending to my knee.†   (source)
  • I think a diversion could be created, or perhaps because of the way spectators are being let to come and go through the jail, we could simply walk them right out under pretense of their daily exercises and spirit them away.†   (source)
  • And then I look around at our pretensions and our beliefs--that we are somehow permanent--and I am reminded that it is the quality of leaders, the courage of a people, the ability to solve problems that enables us to continue for one more year, and then one more year, until our children and our grandchildren have had this freedom, this safety, this health, and this prosperity.†   (source)
  • This is the club pretense, the etiquette.†   (source)
  • Just by imagining, without moving his arms, without any pretense of solidity, he felt as if he were holding his wife and his son.†   (source)
  • He described Harriet as "a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South…… "Her success was wonderful.†   (source)
  • For too long, facts have supported these European pretensions.†   (source)
  • Booth sits in the back and dangles his oar in the water under the pretense of steering.†   (source)
  • Fitzgerald to the illegal, under the pretense of a business venture.†   (source)
  • He did not fly a false flag and claim to be an American, for such a pretense was not possible.†   (source)
  • He offered me a seat and without pretense asked if I wanted to see the questions he planned to ask me.†   (source)
  • He knows I am dying and all his care is simply pretense.†   (source)
  • They don't have to keep up any kind of pretense.†   (source)
  • There was no pretense: he was a prisoner in the hut.†   (source)
  • They sat very still and made no pretense of not listening.†   (source)
  • I've never admitted this to anyone before, lad, but tonight I'm so heartsick I feel at the end of everything, and what's the use of fake pride and pretense.†   (source)
  • It made them laugh to hear her, when strictness was only a pretense.†   (source)
  • And when he pointed out, refusing to respect her pretense at disinterestedness, that he had only two barns built, instead of the fifteen or twenty of a big farmer, and that he could not expect to make thousands, even if the season were good, she brushed this warning aside.†   (source)
  • And as such, he comes into this court under a handicap, notwithstanding our pretensions that all are equal before the law.   (source)
    pretensions = acting as though (pretending)
  • (Even though her pretenses had been totally false.)†   (source)
  • All of the pretenses were starting to wear on me.†   (source)
  • Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible.†   (source)
  • My pretense of incompetence had now become second nature to me, I scarcely had to think about it.†   (source)
  • "It's because he's big," Bast said matter-of-factly as he gave up the pretense of sweeping.†   (source)
  • She didn't want Jason to think she'd dragged him up here on false pretenses.†   (source)
  • Next week: Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts — the Prizes and the Pretense.†   (source)
  • He even said hello to her now and again as one element in his pretense.†   (source)
  • We just need to keep the pretense up in front of the grown-ups.†   (source)
  • "I suppose we all come under false pretenses one way or another, don't we?†   (source)
  • It's all human teeth anyhow" It's all I can do to keep up the pretense that Papa is making sense.†   (source)
  • " Abandoning pretense, Harry said, "And it wasn't Sirius?†   (source)
  • "No, I really must go now, thank you, thank you," I say, glad I remembered how the pretense goes.†   (source)
  • Sweetly, the Queen went on, "Or perhaps this hostility of yours is the pretense.†   (source)
  • I hated this pretense of hers, that Everett and I were friends.†   (source)
  • The pretense, and how she ached to expose it!†   (source)
  • Review, friends—troops long past review: Each a dot of time without pretense or guile.†   (source)
  • Shewants you to die so that she doesn't have to keep up the pretense anymore.†   (source)
  • Before long, Redd won't have to bother with the pretense of making any deal with us.†   (source)
  • By relying on pretense and false signals, they manage to grab a copulation here or there.†   (source)
  • Sheets and blankets had been hung between the various living quarters to make a pretense of privacy.†   (source)
  • I greeted her: "Hello, Dolores" (we had long dropped the pretense of familial relationship).†   (source)
  • Inside, the house held a different kind of pretense.†   (source)
  • The Ygnirods were resentful of their lot in life, but concealed this with a pretense of stupidity.†   (source)
  • Finally Scrimgeour said, with no pretense at warmth, "I see.†   (source)
  • They say she has pretensions of a literary nature.†   (source)
  • He gazed back, and the casual pretense suddenly slipped away.†   (source)
  • Chronicler sat at a nearby table, making a pretense of finishing a bowl of stew.†   (source)
  • I have half a mind to fire you for letting these people in under false pretenses.†   (source)
  • Hatsue knew then that her pretense had failed her.†   (source)
  • I kept up the lame pretense, holding my hand open in front of me.†   (source)
  • It's plain, assertive, without pretensions to grace, like a railway clock: utilitarian.†   (source)
  • "I assume you're hiding it to maintain pretenses."†   (source)
  • No pretenses, no attempts to impress, no one trying to show anyone up.†   (source)
  • A powder-blue jogging suit lacks pretensions.†   (source)
  • The decision was already made, just waiting for the pretense of a justification.†   (source)
  • She had never seen him shocked like that, his pretenses gone, his expression naked and horrified.†   (source)
  • Her love for him had been pretense, and yet he had believed, and found joy in that belief.†   (source)
  • She realized that the pretense was done.†   (source)
  • John did not hide her in some pretense or scheme.†   (source)
  • At the table there was always the pretense of trying to give the envelopes back.†   (source)
  • We have gone through a pretense of truce and reformation, straight into deadlock.†   (source)
  • But he knew that if he stayed he would not be able to keep up the pretense.†   (source)
  • Any pretense of harmony between the President and Vice President was dispensed with.†   (source)
  • "You can give up the college pretense now—you've gotten what you wanted.†   (source)
  • Solembum glared at him with slitted eyes, all pretense of detachment gone.†   (source)
  • His pretensions to uncommon glory were one thing.†   (source)
  • How are Parliamentary pretensions to be reconciled to facts ?†   (source)
  • But what pretense could the President use to build a big military force in peacetime?†   (source)
  • I ended up not bothering with the pretense of a nice, conservative, innocent dress.†   (source)
  • Ah, the charming Jacqueline, or may we drop the pretense, Domie?†   (source)
  • For years now, I've managed everything while you sat about making a pretense of superiority.†   (source)
  • Pretenses, he knew, could be well hidden.†   (source)
  • Once home I ducked into workshop on pretense of needing to change arms.†   (source)
  • What pretense are you talking about, Lillian?†   (source)
  • As it was, I was having a hard time hanging on to a pretense of equanimity.†   (source)
  • Orr asked with a pretense of pensive curiosity.†   (source)
  • She remembered what her mother had said, that every emotion Sebastian showed was a pretense.†   (source)
  • I don't want any pretense about how safe I am.†   (source)
  • Let not our posterity be deluded with fictions under the pretense of poetical or graphical license.†   (source)
  • Usurpation cannot be hidden by pretenses; the people and their representatives will see them.†   (source)
  • A beautiful, spiritual-looking woman, utterly without pretense.†   (source)
  • Right in the middle of all the pretense, it's an even more pretentious spectacle.†   (source)
  • There seemed to be no pretenses in her…her mouth was warm and eager, tasting of generosity.†   (source)
  • For the first time, Shade dropped all pretenses of keeping that thin emotional barrier between them.†   (source)
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