Associations to the word «Pretense»

Wiktionary

PRETENSE, noun. (US) A false or hypocritical profession, as, under pretense of friendliness.
PRETENSE, noun. Intention or purpose not real but professed.
PRETENSE, noun. An unsupported claim made or implied.
PRETENSE, noun. An insincere attempt to reach a specific condition or quality.

Dictionary definition

PRETENSE, noun. The act of giving a false appearance; "his conformity was only pretending".
PRETENSE, noun. Pretending with intention to deceive.
PRETENSE, noun. Imaginative intellectual play.
PRETENSE, noun. A false or unsupportable quality.
PRETENSE, noun. An artful or simulated semblance; "under the guise of friendship he betrayed them".

Wise words

Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.
Paul Gauguin