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pretentious
/prɪˈtɛnʃəs/
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is justified
His pretentious speech about art made everyone roll their eyes.
The speech was unnecessarily elaborate and self-important, making it seem insincere.
informal
Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, or sophistication than is justified; overly self-important or snobbish.
She wore a pretentious outfit to the party, thinking it would make her stand out.
Her outfit was overly elaborate and designed to appear more sophisticated than necessary.
The restaurant's pretentious menu used overly complex language to describe simple dishes.
The menu was unnecessarily fancy and used exaggerated descriptions for ordinary food.
Often used to criticize someone who acts as if they are more cultured, intelligent, or important than they actually are.
Collocations
pretentious attitudean overly self-important way of behavingpretentious behavioracting in a way that seems to be trying too hard to impresspretentious languagelanguage that is unnecessarily elaborate or fancy
Related Phrases
Pro Tip
Avoiding pretentiousness
Be genuine and avoid using overly complex language or behavior just to impress others.
Gold Rule
Context matters
Pretentiousness is often judged by others, so be aware of how your words and actions come across.
Word Origin
From the Latin 'praetendere' meaning 'to stretch forward' or 'to claim', via the French 'prétendre' meaning 'to pretend'.
Usage Notes
The word is often used in a negative or critical way to describe someone who is trying too hard to appear sophisticated or important.
Word Breakdown
pretend
to claim or act as if something is true
root-ious
having the quality of
suffixEnglish Dictionary