PRETENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pretence

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noun

Pretence n. See Pretense.

Pretence, Pretense n.

1.

The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. "Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power." "I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford."

2.

The act of holding out, or offering, to others something false or feigned; presentation of what is deceptive or hypocritical; deception by showing what is unreal and concealing what is real; false show; simulation; as, pretense of illness; under pretense of patriotism; on pretense of revenging Caesar's death.

3.

That which is pretended; false, deceptive, or hypocritical show, argument, or reason; pretext; feint. "Let not the Trojans, with a feigned pretense Of proffered peace, delude the Latian prince."

4.

Intention; design. (Obs.) "A very pretense and purpose of unkindness." Note: See the Note under Offense.

Synonyms: Mask; appearance; color; show; pretext; excuse. Pretense, Pretext. A pretense is something held out as real when it is not so, thus falsifying the truth. A pretext is something woven up in order to cover or conceal one's true motives, feelings, or reasons. Pretext is often, but not always, used in a bad sense.

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Etymology of 'Pretence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pretence" Quotes from Famous Books

... neigbourhood, the man should, with his friends, fall on her guards, and having killed them, or frightened them away, forcibly carry her off." Sometime it is the man who is shy. In such cases the girl "should bring him to her house under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks and rams, of hearing the maina (a kind of starling) talk.... she should also amuse him for a long time by telling him such stories and doing such things as he may take ...

— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... they had mistaken the afterglow of his wings for the living radiance. They had begun to realise the desolate truth. They read it in each other's eyes. She had been too loyal to speak. She would have married him, hoping as a woman hopes, against hope. Paragot, whose soul revolted from pretence, preferring real mire to sham down, fled from ...

— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence of kindness." She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They seemed to ask him to explain. "When you came this morning with the tale of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he was caught in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping ...

— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... says that $1,000,000, stolen from the treasury of the city, were used by the Ring to buy up a majority of the two Houses of the Legislature. By means of these purchased votes, the various measures of the Ring were passed. The principal measure was the Charter of the City of New York. "Under the pretence of giving back to the people of the City of New York local self-government, they provided that the Mayor then in office should appoint all the heads of Departments for a period of at least four years, and in some cases ...

— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... gipsy-tent-looking cart-tilt; and when the dinner was over, and there was a slight change of places, while the fragments were being cleared away and the dessert and wine were being placed on the table - that is to say, the cloth - Miss Patty, under pretence of escaping from a ray of sunshine that had pierced the trees and found its way to her face, retreated a yard or so, and crouched beneath the pseudo gipsy-tent. And what so natural but that Mr. Verdant Green should ...

— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

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