All 4 Uses of
pretense
in
Main Street
- She made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking.†
Chpt 4 *
- When she spied Mrs. McGanum or Mrs. Dyer ahead she crossed over with an elaborate pretense of looking at a billboard.†
Chpt 9
- The snow, stretching without break from streets to devouring prairie beyond, wiped out the town's pretense of being a shelter.†
Chpt 10
- She recalled tenderly the young awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown cottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation; had compassion for their assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for their pretense of greatness, even as trumpeted in "boosting."†
Chpt 38
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.