10 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
an appearance or action to help one pretend
- Everyone knew that her swoons were generally mere ladylike pretenses but they loved her enough to refrain from saying so.2.8 (78% in)
- Thus appealed to, Jeems gave up further pretense of not having overheard the conversation and furrowed his black brow.1.1 (50% in)
- She must go on making a pretense of enthusiasm and pride in the Cause which she could not feel, acting out her part of the widow of a Confederate officer who bears her grief bravely, whose heart is in the grave, who feels that her husband's death meant nothing if it aided the Cause to triumph.2.9 (35% in)
- Every girl with any pretense to accomplishments had sung or played the piano, and the tableaux vivants had been greeted with flattering applause.2.12 (73% in)
- All her life she had heard sneers hurled at the Yankees because their pretensions to gentility were based on wealth, not breeding.4.35 (92% in)
- In the weeks that followed her first party, Scarlett was hard put to keep up her pretense of supreme indifference to public opinion.5.49 (67% in)
- Pinchbeck ladies themselves, they no more saw through Scarlett's pinchbeck pretensions than she herself did.5.49 (92% in)
- He laughed at everything she did, encouraged her extravagances and insolences, jeered at her pretenses—and paid the bills.5.49 (**% in)
- Sometimes, he was a very comfortable person to live with, for all his unfortunate habit of not permitting anyone in his presence to act a lie, palm off a pretense or indulge in bombast.5.50 (2% in)
- For some time I've been intending to tell you to stop your elaborate pretenses and drink openly if you want to.5.54 (22% in)
There are no more uses of "pretense" in Gone with the Wind.
Typical Usage
(best examples)