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. --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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]
WordNet (r) 2.0
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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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