Pretentious

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Pretentious \Pre*ten"tious\, a. [Cf. F. pr['e]tentieux. See
     {Pretend}.]
     Full of pretension; disposed to lay claim to more than is
     one's; presuming; assuming. -- {Pre*ten"tious*ly}, adv. --
     {Pre*ten"tious*ness}, n.
     [1913 Webster]



From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  pretentious
       adj 1: making claim to or creating an appearance of (often
              undeserved) importance or distinction; "a pretentious
              country house"; "a pretentious fraud"; "a pretentious
              scholarly edition" [ant: {unpretentious}]
       2: intended to attract notice and impress others; "an
          ostentatious sable coat" [syn: {ostentatious}] [ant: {unostentatious}]
       3: of a display that is tawdry or vulgar [syn: {ostentatious},
          {kitsch}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  114 Moby Thesaurus words for "pretentious":
     Gongoresque, Gongoristic, Johnsonian, Marinistic, affected,
     ambitious, arrogant, artificial, arty, aureate, bedizened, big,
     big-sounding, bombastic, chichi, classy, convoluted, declamatory,
     elaborate, elaborated, elevated, euphuistic, exaggerated,
     extravagant, fancy, feigned, flamboyant, flaming, flashy,
     flaunting, flossy, flowery, fulsome, garish, gassy, gaudy,
     grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, haughty, high and mighty,
     high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-hat, high-sounding,
     high-swelling, high-toned, highfalutin, highfaluting, histrionic,
     hoity-toity, hyperelegant, imposing, inflated, inkhorn, insincere,
     la-di-da, labyrinthine, lexiphanic, lofty, lurid, magniloquent,
     maniere, mannered, meretricious, mincing, orotund, ostentatious,
     overacted, overblown, overdone, overelaborate, overelegant,
     overinvolved, overnice, overrefined, overwrought, peacockish,
     peacocky, pedantic, pompous, precieuse, precieux, precious, put-on,
     rhetorical, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, showy,
     snobbish, snotty, sonorous, splashy, stagy, stilted, studied,
     superficial, swank, swollen, tall, theatrical, tony, too-too,
     tortuous, tumid, turgid, unnatural, utopian, vainglorious,
     vaunting, visionary, windy