<noun.attribute> under the guise of friendship he betrayed them
pretending with intention to deceive
<noun.communication>
imaginative intellectual play
<noun.cognition>
the act of giving a false appearance
<noun.act> his conformity was only pretending
Pretence \Pre*tence"\, n., Pretenceful \Pre*tence"ful\, a., Pretenceless \Pre*tence"*less\, a. See {Pretense}, {Pretenseful}, {Pretenseless}.
Pretense \Pre*tense"\, Pretence \Pre*tence\, n. [LL. praetensus, for L. praetentus, p. p. of praetendere. See {Pretend}, and cf. {Tension}.] 1. The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. --Spenser.
Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power. --Locke.
I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford. --Evelyn.
2. The act of holding out, or offering, to others something false or feigned; presentation of what is deceptive or hypocritical; deception by showing what is unreal and concealing what is real; false show; simulation; as, pretense of illness; under pretense of patriotism; on pretense of revenging C[ae]sar's death.
3. That which is pretended; false, deceptive, or hypocritical show, argument, or reason; pretext; feint.
Let not the Trojans, with a feigned pretense Of proffered peace, delude the Latian prince. --Dryden.
4. Intention; design. [Obs.]
A very pretense and purpose of unkindness. --Shak.
Usage: {Pretense}, {Pretext}. A pretense is something held out as real when it is not so, thus falsifying the truth. A pretext is something woven up in order to cover or conceal one's true motives, feelings, or reasons. Pretext is often, but not always, used in a bad sense.
This pretence is intended to harm Tunisia's reputation and undermine its judiciary.
I am not advocating short-termism or that anything goes, but merely avoiding a pretence to knowledge that we do not have.
This message arrives as a series of moral choices neatly balanced, so one is instructed and flattered into recognising the dangers of pretence. One learns nothing, however, from this production.
The price of the competitive pretence of privatisation is the reversion to government of a responsibility it had sought to escape.
They are there simply to be beautiful. They take their name (so The Secret Garden Company informs me) from a 'waggish pretence of Latin learning', purporting as they do to be places from which to gaze.