All 4 Uses of
pretense
in
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
- Then, "But of course he HAS to see how things are at the office——" She made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking.†
Chpt 4 *pretense = a false appearance or action to help one pretend
- 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:
a false appearance or action to help one pretend
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.