pretencenoun [ U ]
UK US pretense uk/prɪˈtens/us/prɪˈtens/a way of behaving that is intended to deceive people:
She made absolutely no pretence of being interested.
They kept up (= continued) a pretence of normality as long as they could.
The army has given up any pretence of neutrality in the war.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Faking & pretending
- a wolf in sheep's clothing idiom
- affect
- assume
- believe
- bluff
- changeling
- charlatan
- falsify
- feign
- fraud
- go through the motions idiom
- guise
- phoney
- play at sth
- play possum idiom
- play sth out
- play-acting
- professed
- purport
- quack
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