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pretentious

adj
/pɹɪˈtɛn.t͡ʃəs/

Etymology

From French prétentieux, from prétention, from Latin praetēnsus (“false or hypocritical profession”), past participle of praetendō. Note that pretentious is spelled with a ‘t’, unlike related pretense, pretension. This is due to the French spelling: *-sious does not occur as an English suffix, though -sion and -tion both do.

  1. derived from praetēnsus — “false or hypocritical profession”
  2. derived from prétentieux

Definitions

  1. Motivated by an inappropriate, excessive, or unjustified desire to impress others.

    • Her dress was obviously more pretentious than comfortable.

  2. Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction.

    • Their song titles are pretentious in the context of their basic lyrics.
    • The station (1840) was originally Cheltenham but the more grandiose Cheltenham Spa since 1925, which feels a bit pretentious as the town has never allowed itself to assume such airs and graces.

The neighborhood

Derived

nonpretentious, pretentiously, pretentiousness

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at pretentious. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01pretentious02unwarranted03warranted04necessary05achieve06successfully07success08achievement09entitled

A definitional loop anchored at pretentious. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at pretentious

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA