All 5 Uses of
pretentious
in
Middlemarch
- In fact, Mrs. Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the Middlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner, who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their grandfathers' furniture.†
Chpt 1unpretentiously = not in a manner that acts more impressive than is deservedstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unpretentiously means not and reverses the meaning of pretentiously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- The tinge of unpretentious, inoffensive vulgarity in Mrs. Vincy gave more effect to Rosamond's refinement, which was beyond what Lydgate had expected.†
Chpt 2 *unpretentious = not attempting to act more impressive than is deservedstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unpretentious means not and reverses the meaning of pretentious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- In the country, people have less pretension to knowledge, and are less of companions, but for that reason they affect one's amour-propre less: one makes less bad blood, and can follow one's own course more quietly.†
Chpt 2pretension = acting more impressive than is deserved
- It was clear that Lydgate, by not dispensing drugs, intended to cast imputations on his equals, and also to obscure the limit between his own rank as a general practitioner and that of the physicians, who, in the interest of the profession, felt bound to maintain its various grades,—especially against a man who had not been to either of the English universities and enjoyed the absence of anatomical and bedside study there, but came with a libellous pretension to experience in Edinburgh and Paris, where observation might be abundant indeed, but hardly sound.†
Chpt 2
- They implied that he was insolent, pretentious, and given to that reckless innovation for the sake of noise and show which was the essence of the charlatan.†
Chpt 5pretentious = attempting to act more impressive than is deserved
Definitions:
-
(1)
(pretentious) acting more impressive than is deserved
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, the word form, pretension, can mean to apply tension to something before an event--as when a seat belt is pretensioned so it will be snug prior to use in an accident.