How To Use Pretense In A Sentence

But, just in case you get the idea that all was pretence and subterfuge, I feel I should let you know just how the mother of a friend of mine described the communist years.
He had circled around to come to the village by the south, on the pretence of making it appear that he was headed for Kaye.
The novel is also natural in the sense of man's everyday life, done without pretence and pose.
For matter of Religion it would require a particular volume, if I should set downe how irreligiously they couer their greedy and ambicious pretenses, with that veile of pietie. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation
He didn't like the food, but he made a pretence of eating some of it as he was a guest.

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One of the nice things about this world is that, when the screwers talk to the screwed, they've abandoned the current pretense of pretending it's for the screwed's own good.
I'm all for good satire, the sharp and perceptive deflating of pretense, pompousness or deceit.
The following list makes no pretence to completeness; ‘martext’, ‘carrytale’, ‘pleaseman’, English Past and Present
Miss Margland, who, sideling towards the window, on pretence of examining a print, had heard and seen all that had passed, was almost overpowered with rage, by the conviction she received that her apprehensions were not groundless. Camilla
The democratic pretences of the opposition have always been threadbare.
On pretence of enjoying a free air, he mounted the box, and employed his elocution and generosity with such success, that the driver undertook to disable the diligence from proceeding beyond the town of Alost for that day; and, in consequence of his promise, gently overturned it when they were but a mile short of that baiting-place. The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
These people are all engaged in a game of pretence.
This seems awfully similar, to a noneconomist such as me, to the pretense of knowledge that Austrians have so well criticized, starting with the socialist calculation debate. Roger Koppl - The Austrian Economists
Constantinople, where I lived gaily, and spent my money; but I found that to mix in the world, it is necessary not only to have an attaghan, but also to have the courage to use it; and in several broils which took place, from my too frequent use of the water of the Giaour, I invariably proved that, although my voice was that of a lion, my heart was but as water, and the finger of contempt was but too often pointed at the beard of pretence. The Pacha of Many Tales
He tried to get close to her under the pretence of examining the pictures on the wall.
After all its just a thrown together bunch of experiences with the narrowest of pretenses holding it all together.
He was hanged without even the pretence of a proper trial.
You came here under false pretences, though I admit there were mitigating circumstances. A SONG AT TWILIGHT
* Thus, in "The state was made, under the pretence of serving it, in reality the prize of their contention to each of these opposite parties," it is unpleasantly doubtful whether the writer means (1) _state_ or (2) _parties_ to be emphatic. How to Write Clearly Rules and Exercises on English Composition
He made no pretence of great musical knowledge.
His appeal to blasphemy is played in such a way that it seems a disingenuous pretence.
That way he could abandon any pretence of loyalty to the book and invent all the Game of Thrones characters he wanted. Times, Sunday Times
It means that we let go of posturing and pretence and live simply as we are, in truth, at ease with ourselves and with others, not having to worry about who's up or who's down, who's in or who's out.
For a certain portion of the passengers had the unmistakable excursion air: the half-jocular manner towards each other, the local facetiousness which is so offensive to uninterested fellow-travelers, that male obsequiousness about ladies 'shawls and reticules, the clumsy pretense of gallantry with each other's wives, the anxiety about the company luggage and the company health. Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing
I'm looking to be entertained: boredom, tedium is the worst literary or filmic sin, and cannot be excused by a pretence to some spurious intellectual superiority.
Describing the film as a reflection of life in present India, the film-maker points out that the roles the characters play within the film become their masks and pretence to higher moral ground.
Sesostris, or Pharaoh Ramses II, whose mummy was unswathed in 1886 by Maspero of the Bulak Museum, and recognised as that of the greatest king of Egypt, whose grandson, Ramses III, was the last king of an ancient kingdom. when not a mere pretence, degenerated but too often into Black Magic.
However, in those circumstances, the whole scheme would be a sham and a pretence.
One of the nice things about this world is that, when the screwers talk to the screwed, they've abandoned the current pretense of pretending it's for the screwed's own good.
As an auxiliary to the bilging by boring, the masts are often cut away under the pretence of making her "lie easy," or to prevent "thumping."
Furthermore, this High King who has forced Tarn into vassalage reigns under false pretences. IRONCROWN MOON: PART TWO OF THE BOREAL MOON TALE
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
He wrote once that we ought to stop the ridiculous pretense of calling these toplofty politicians our ‘leaders’; they are in fact our rulers.
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
It is impossible to say what quantity of gold the Kunsi may get; but their pretence that they _get none_ must be false, when every common Malay obtains from half to one bunkal per month. The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido For the Suppression of Piracy
And I thinke verilie, that in one region of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie; specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under pretence of studie ... all kyndes of vertue maie there be learned: and therfore are those places accordyngly furnisshed: not of suche students alone, as moste commonly are brought up in our universitees (meane mens children set to schole in hope to live upon hyred learnyng) but for the more parte of noble mens sonnes, and of the best gentilmen: that studie more for knowledge and pleasure than for curiositee or luker: ... English Travellers of the Renaissance
Ann's suggestion that the use of "gainsaid" in Brennan's opinion was "sheer pretension, a modern person's idea of how to sound like you came from the 19th century," has a little pretense to it as well. "It cannot be gainsaid..."
By the end of the evening she had abandoned all pretence of being interested.
There is in the penumbra of the USA Patriots Act the rendition of prisoners, the detention of however many anonymous suspects without even the pretense of due process, not to mention legal representation, the perpetual suspension of civil liberty, a new blatancy. Victor Navasky: The Difference Between Being Opinionated (Bad) and Having an Opinion (Good)
Fights were sometimes orchestrated under false pretences, so that inmates could swipe and pilfer a target person's store items.
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
We meet everywhere so much kindness now, that we can make no pretence to confessorship. ' Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2
We should give up the pretence, take holidays for their own sake, and restore some dignity to the nominal purpose of existing national holidays. Times, Sunday Times
These people are all engaged in a game of pretence.
It's given up the pretence of being from anyone's kitchen. Times, Sunday Times
The absurd pretence of the supermom role was taking its toll. Times, Sunday Times
The pretence of seamlessness is unseemly. Times, Sunday Times
Some of its leading figures no longer maintain the pretence that outright victory is possible. Times, Sunday Times
Like his predecessor, he maintains a pretence that the judiciary is independent of the Kremlin. Times, Sunday Times
The matte finish created by the pattern and the use of wood for the seat frame and spindles further the countrified pretense of the chair.
If you want a pretence to whip a dog, say that he ate the frying-pam.
He ripped away the mask of pretence which covered their activities.
Cheney and his pack of merry men spent 8 years destroying the economy, invading other countries under false pretences and just plain screwing up. Cheney named Conservative of the Year
The suggestion that people are arbitrarily reliving the past and exploiting it under the pretense of creating art strikes her as an affront.
The investigators' methods included obtaining phone records using false pretences, a process known as pretexting. Times, Sunday Times
He demonstrated to her, -- that the disobligation to her Parents would be greater by going to a Monastery, since it was only to avoid a choice which they had made for her, and which she could not have so just a pretence to do till she had made one for her self. Incognita; or, Love and Duty Reconcil'd
Roman satin" and what is called "_satin de luxe_" (perhaps because it is not so luxurious as it pretends to be) are effective ground-stuffs easy to work upon; but there is an odour of pretence about satin-faced cotton. Art in Needlework A Book about Embroidery
International newspaper empire under the pretense it was a so-called noncompete payment from buyers of the company's assets. Thestar.com - Home Page
This is music to play when you're at the cottage, when all your defenses and pretenses are left back in the city.
Tollitt made no pretense of being surprised.
Wad ye daur to sweir afore a leddy," she exclaimed, shaking her uplifted hands in pretence of ghasted astonishment. The Marquis of Lossie
The weather seemed to be a pretense for a storm, windy and hinting toward a tempest.
Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies. Jim Morrison
Under conditions in which it will not defend even its own members, the AFL-CIO's pretense that it is building a movement to represent the unemployed and unorganized is absurd.
I could think of no better way to communicate than with a poem, where pretense is stripped away, leaving only what is beautiful and vital. And I didn’t even get your name… : Patricia Smith : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
Philip the Bold, by having an inescutcheon of pretence on the centre of the arms of Margaret de Maele, first assumed by his father, John the Illuminated Manuscripts
Note, the sincere and serious beggars at Christ's door commonly meet with the worst rebukes from those that follow him but in pretence and hypocrisy. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John)
Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it. Ayn Rand
I am in my contrivances and pretences to blind my gaoleress, and to take off the jealousy of her principals on my going down so often into the garden and poultry-yard. Clarissa Harlowe
And a waiting moment was enough - she and I yet again flinging every possible limit aside, deciding on all manner of pretense and affectation.
She made absolutely no pretence of being interested.
Topping it all with fur, Dior has turned chinchilla and foxtail inside out and unlined with the aim of showing off their rough unfinished zigzag seams without a modicum of pretense.
It appears that the communicative competence is better displayed when children engage in pretense situations.
To Montcalm, who was of noble birth with no shamming, this lowbred pretense and play at courtcraft became a bore; to his staff of officers, a source of continual amusement; but De Lévis presently falls victim to a pair of fine eyes possessed by the wife of another man. Canada: the Empire of the North Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom
There was no pretence there, no act, and there was something about her that felt like a real breath of fresh air.
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WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
It is wrong to ensure the lawsuit false pretence as the swindle crime, though it has some characters of swindle crime.
The pretence that they are working to unite the party will have gone. Times, Sunday Times
The real scandal is that a newspaper that once had some pretense to quality now prints ignorant drivel like this.
And how would the time spent by the presenters of ‘happenings’ and other such phony pretences of art be measured?
Except for the felicitous pretense of deafness I had not tried to pretend anything.
He oozes confidence in his ability to please, without any of the boastful pretense that a human with his charms would inevitably have.
Altman strips away the pretence and mythology to expose the film industry as a business like any other.
In using the term ‘horrifying’, I am not including am-dram productions of The King and I, which never had any serious pretense to quality.
Edwards has on numerous occasions reitterated that this proposal is not a pretense at a potential Presidential fiat to shrive healthcare from our Congressional representatives BUT merely the first salvo in his campaign to initiate action towards bringing healthcare to all as right and not a moneyed privilege. Edwards Mailer In Iowa Reiterates His Threat To Take Away Congress' Health Care
Altman strips away the pretence and mythology to expose the film industry as a business like any other.
Another article in the "mainstream" media criticizing President Obama, in which the pretense is about an "open media" and "transparency," but the subtext is obvious – racism, pure and simple. Reliable Sources: Journos spar over Obama presser question
As for all other pretences, they are nothing but death and damnation dressed up in fair words and false shews; nothing but gins, and snares, and trapans for souls, contrived by the devil, and managed by such as the devil sets on work. Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. II.
the satire touches with finespun ridicule every kind of human pretense
Suppose I am trying to predict a decision you are about to make, and I am using pretence-based simulation.
My starlike pretense found its final frontier in a room which was anonymous by nature. Fallin’ Up
Finding the enclosures is made more difficult by the sixty odd additions made since the opening, none of which makes any pretence to architectural merit.
Only, he had one singular advantage for the promotion of his pretence and desire; for whereas this whole contignation of churches into all these storeys, in the top whereof he emerged and lifted up himself, was nothing but an accommodation of the church and its affairs unto the government of the Roman empire, or the setting up of an ecclesiastical image and representation of its secular power and rule, the centring therein of all subordinate powers and orders in one monarch inclined the minds of men to comply with his design as very reasonable. A Discourse concerning Evangelical Love, Church Peace, and Unity
I make no pretence to being an expert on the subject.
Hunger has driven him to abandon all social pretence and he describes his own animal behaviour.
I do find, because I work alongside lots of other artists and producers, that pretense could be a smokescreen for insecurity.
Item, in another he had a little leather bottle full of old oil, wherewith, when he saw any man or woman in a rich new handsome suit, he would grease, smutch, and spoil all the best parts of it under colour and pretence of touching them, saying, This is good cloth; this is good satin; good taffeties! Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
a shield of arms, within an orb ar.sa. a spread eagle of the first bearing an escutcheon of pretence ar. a lion ppr. in chief in base a chev.gu. charged with three escallop shells of the first, impaling a saltire sa. between four crosses fitche of the same. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 394, October 17, 1829
What it was, instead, was a farrago of paranoia and pretence, hysteria and lies.
There was this pretense to liberalism, I mean even in '38 when the people went to the Southern Conference they were able to draw a crowd of fifteen hundred people there and use the term liberalism in a fairly non-threatening way. Oral History Interview with Stetson Kennedy, May 11, 1990. Interview A-0354. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Good music, friendly staff, and a belting atmosphere, nice clientele, lots of class without too much pretence and one of the better bars in Manchester.
My answer the other day had not been entirely honest, for it was no use maintaining the pretence that my coming departure was a matter of chance. THE LAST OF THE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS: Coming of Age in the Arctic
They are ill served by the pretence of simplicity, or the fatuous notion that the relationship is one big, rolling quid pro quo. Times, Sunday Times
This Labour stalwart is the Luftfur Rahman who was a selectorial candidate for the PPC-ship at Bethnal Green and Bow, and not the one who is Leader of the Labour Group at Tower Hamlets, or the one who recently completed the clear out of Longsight, Manchester by ousting the false pretences Lib Dem gate maker Liaqat Ali. Trial by Jeory: Getting All Anal Over CV Massage
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
They are ill served by the pretence of simplicity, or the fatuous notion that the relationship is one big, rolling quid pro quo. Times, Sunday Times
I ordered him to scram, under the pretense of changing into warmer clothes.
There was no pretense, no "oversoul" in her emotion now. The Second Generation
Intimating, that doubtless that was the occasion of all this confusion, and disorder of mind, and of his shiness of the Divine pretence, An Essay on the Mosaic Account of the Creation and Fall of Man.
Hunger has driven him to abandon all social pretence and he describes his own animal behaviour.
Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh. The Abbot
This study was to explore the possible relations between preschoolers' false belief understanding and their general verbal ability, and the using of mental terms during pretense play.
The western is about the pretence of being a man. Times, Sunday Times
But, by asserting the Scripture to be the canon of oar faith, I have unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies: the Papists indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scriptures from us what they could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they have delivered under the pretence of infallibility: and the Fanatics more collaterally, because they have assumed what amounts to an infallibility, in the private spirit; and have detorted those texts of The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes
There were medley-pictures contrived of photographs cut out and grouped together in novel and unexpected relations; and there were set about divers patterns and pretences in keramics, as the decoration of earthen pots and jars was called. The Coast of Bohemia
He made no pretence of thinking the principle of divorce _a vinculo_ anything but an immense evil, but he still held himself free, if that view were repudiated, to consider the legislative question of dissolubility and its conditions. The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859
An unashamed populist who made no pretence to intellectual qualities, he endeared himself to many with his robust Northern sense of humour and straightforward manner. Times, Sunday Times
Chee had watched her, examining her grief for some sign of pretense and thinking that her prescience was hardly remarkable. SKINWALKERS
Finding the enclosures is made more difficult by the sixty odd additions made since the opening, none of which makes any pretence to architectural merit.
This is music to play when you're at the cottage, when all your defenses and pretenses are left back in the city.
I saw your desire of saving Madame Duval, and scarce could I refrain giving the brutal Captain my real opinion of his savage conduct; but I am unwilling to quarrel with him, lest I should be denied entrance into a house which you inhabit; I have been endeavouring to prevail with him to give up his absurd new scheme, but I find him impenetrable: – I have therefore determined to make a pretense for suddenly leaving this place, dear as it is to me, and containing all I most admire and adore; – and I will stay in town till the violence of this boobyish humour is abated. Evelina: or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World
It's reminiscent of other press gleanings, except that he makes no pretense that his work is objective.
He was deported for entering the country under false pretences.
There are people out there who, in pretense of a dark cloud around him are hiding their racist attitudes and I hope you are not one of them. Edwards again rules out VP job
At the same time, she would inscribe a self that is so multiple and mutable as to subvert, by its very nature, any pretence to stability - much less the transcendence of a single identity.
I was operating under the illusion that only I knew how vile this curry was and continued the pretence by enthusiastically wolfing it down.
Our women it seems have left their homes on some pretence of Bacchic worship, and are now gadding about on the wooded mountain slopes, dancing in honour of this upstart god, Dionysus
In 1675 Maryland abandoned the pretense of a militia and shifted to reliance on paid rangers, though they rarely called upon them.
His brand of barroom rock 'n' blues caught on huge at a time when punk, new wave and metal were stripping down the pretense of prog rock.
They'll put on the usual pretenses of being happy to be there, and all, but I know it's all a facade.
Ten years passing only heightens his status as a true street poet, devoid of current bling-bling pretense and full of scathing wit and sharp charm.
But true appreciation of wine derives from the realization that it is meant to be shared with those around us, without pretense or affectation, in proper measure, and as an enhancement to our lives.
The peace-seeking pretense was dripping with charade in the months before the invasion.
Pretence of any kind was as the red rag; "bleat" was the unpardonable sin; the man who was "human" was the man to be praised. Nights Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties
Was he also taking a sly dig at the Canadian pretense that we don't engage in American dreaming?
They'll put on the usual pretenses of being happy to be there, and all, but I know it's all a facade.
Precisely how these marriages are distinct from hiring a sex worker, I am unclear – but the distinction at least keeps up the pretence that the new sexual culture doesn't violate religious order.
This they have done without any pretence of ignorance of the objects of oppression for which this prince has thought fit to become their renter; for he has again and again told them that it is for the sole purpose of exercising authority he holds the jaghire lands; and he affirms (and I believe with truth) that he pays more for that territory than the revenues yield. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12)
The man promises to tell his son of her visit and, keeping up the pretence, goes to a masked ball under the guise of his ‘son’.
It is implied, however, that this is never more than a pretence, a cover, behind which he conceals his unavowed determination to remain at a stage from which he could, if he chose, release himself.
He had circled around to come to the village by the south, on the pretence of making it appear that he was headed for Kaye.
Critics could barely keep to the constitutional pretence that the monarch was above political error.
Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies. Jim Morrison
I have already referred to him as being almost the only "highflyer" in the prison, as being the man who once obtained 150_l. _ from a gentleman in Devonshire under false pretences. Six Years in the Prisons of England
Some critics were turned off by Williams' bombastic, proclamatory emceeing, which often made no pretense of rhythmic consistency or tonal variety.
I'm speaking to this wicked child, who has obtained our love and sympathy and attention on false pretences, for which she ought to be put in prison -- yes, in _prison_, for such a heartless trick on relatives who can ill afford to be so cruelly disappointed! ' The Talking Horse And Other Tales
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
In lucid prose, he shreds pretenses and pretexts and demands consistent, bright lines.
So my book choices don't reflect a pretence to intellectualism - quite the reverse.
Later, when the usefulness of pretence had passed, people would be allowed to wave their children off, although it is doubtful whether this rendered the moment any less painful.
Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies. Jim Morrison
It's also incredibly insensitive that he offers you unsolicited counselling - he should have the grace to maintain the pretence of secrecy. Times, Sunday Times
The tunes make no pretence at being high art; this is meat and potatoes, served with a hot sauce. Times, Sunday Times
I tried to maintain a pretence after my release and acted as though I were fine. Times, Sunday Times
The former live their lives within a rigid moralism and behavioral codes and have a supercilious social pretense.
Under the pretence of lighting a candle, she evades him and disappears.
It was all an elaborate pretence.
Limbaugh already has his Black Shirt and has passed from merely feeding from the situation to an arrogance of pretense. The Paranoid Rightwing
The theory made the greatest pretence of having a scientific foundation.
Red Clover ( trifolium pretense ) helps restore and balance hormonal function.
It makes no pretence about what it does. Times, Sunday Times
In order to have a meaningful ID theory, IDers need to drop the equivocations, the pretense that folk psychology is adequate to their needs, and put a stake in the ground for dualistic interactionism – or whatever they really are talking about when the use this damnably undefined term of theirs. Bunny and a Book
If you want a pretence to whip a dog, say that he ate the frying-pam.
Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities, are the greatest cozenage which man can put upon the providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847
Immigration officers attempt to catch people entering the country under false pretenses.
It was said; and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived: but when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there — my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Chapter 3
She knew a couple of friends elsewhere who lived together under the pretense of sharing an apartment or duplex.
They wanted an end to secrecy and the covering up of blunders, there was to be no dissimulation in producing policies, no more pretence that all was well when it clearly was not.
The charges put to the accused yesterday include the falsification of accounts, acquiring money under false pretences and failing to keep records.
He eschews technical jargon and any pretence of omniscience, providing instead an intimate, heartfelt account of his experiences.
In July, 1968, he appeared in court for bigamy, larceny and false pretences, with 116 offences considered, and was sentenced to two years jail, suspended for three years.
At least in recent years the Federal Government has abandoned the pretence of supporting the UN target while making no genuine attempt to achieve it.
This gap refers to the lack of opportunities to engage in pretense and exploration with language that occurs through free play in the classroom.
In such cases the girl “should bring him to her house under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks and rams, of hearing the maina (a kind of starling) talk .... she should also amuse him for a long time by telling him such stories and doing such things as he may take most delight in.” The Life of Sir Richard Burton
Dance scenes that fly from even the pretence of naturalism to attain an oneiric expressionism…
Obama said "I would meet with leaders like Chavez, and nk Kim, Al the meany from Iran", ... that doesn't necessarily mean he'll do it on day one, unplanned, and without diplomatic pretense. Election Central Morning Roundup
The well-scrubbed Dutch stoop is famous and has come to serve as an example of public exhibitionism and bourgeois pretentiousness .... but it was no pretense; the interiors of the Dutch houses were equally scrubbed and scoured. Dutch Domesticity in the Golden Age
It has been clearly laid down by the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice and others that the law of this country does not recognize supernatural powers of any sort whatever, and that a pretence of such powers where payment is involved constitutes a crime in itself. The Land of Mist
Many gave up any pretence at collegiality and fought single-mindedly for their own vision of defence. Times, Sunday Times
Theres a bad kind, where the pretence is instead of the real thing, as when a man pretends hes going to help you instead of really helping you. As I Please
But I'm abandoning the pretence. Times, Sunday Times
Clerks were continually chided for carrying themselves with a pretence of gentility in their dress, but clerks had little choice in the matter.
And so begins a deadly war of social one-upmanship, with both maintaining the pretence that no such war is actually taking place. Times, Sunday Times
The trailer had me riveted from the opening, the way in which it just threw away any pretense to add in dialogue or exposition or, for that matter, an explanation of the movie as it just sticks to the fun parts of a Fugitive meets Rambo kind of movie. This Week In Trailers: The Secret In Their Eyes (El Secreto De Sus Ojos), American: The Bill Hicks Story, The Square, Jake, Kajínek | /Film
Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it. Ayn Rand
We did not need any persuading to give up the pretence of sleep at the earliest possible moment. THE LAST OF THE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS: Coming of Age in the Arctic
In effect the Bank was conducting the rescue by itself, with the clearers being used only so that there could be a pretence to the public that normal credit lines were being extended to those being rescued.
He detects a rise in self delusion, a diminution of individual identity and a selling-out of the soul, and reveals a hardening distaste for falsehood and pretence in his darkly-amusing morality play.
I'm looking to be entertained: boredom, tedium is the worst literary or filmic sin, and cannot be excused by a pretence to some spurious intellectual superiority.
Accordingly, the Pithamarda should bring the man to her house, under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks, and rams, of hearing the maina (a kind of starling) talk, or of seeing some other spectacle, or the practice of some art; or he may take the woman to the abode of the man. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks
Any pretence that England were unfortunate victims of circumstance in New Zealand has been blown out of the water and replaced by a litany of examples of avarice and muddle-headed thinking. Damning reports expose something rotten at heart of England rugby | Robert Kitson
The whistle cuts through all fantasy and pretense.
Feeling a bit larkier than usual this morning, aren't you?" he inquired with what was merely a pretense at carelessness. The Prairie Child
As far as I see it, West has done his part in clarifying his comments, and I'm more happy for the opportunity to share the Catholic Gospel, under the pretense of correcting a media misconstruing, than not having any opportunity at all. Christopher West: "I never said Hugh Hefner is a hero, never..."
Rome -- the 'colluvies gentium' -- the sink of the nations, with its conceit, its pomposity, its beggary, its profligacy, its superstition, its pretence of preserving the Roman law and rights, while practically it cared for no law nor right at all. Roman and the Teuton
And, if you were to send a poulet to a fine woman, in such a hand, she would think that it really came from the poulailler; which, by the bye, is the etymology of the word poulet; for Henry the Fourth of France used to send billets-doux to his mistresses by his poulailler, under pretense of sending them chickens; which gave the name of poulets to those short, but expressive manuscripts. Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman
It seems too intellectual to keep up any blusterous pretense to the contrary.
However, in those circumstances, the whole scheme would be a sham and a pretence.
The pretense of a demonetized society notwithstanding, consumption was king at Burning Man. Desert Wanderers Find Their Promised Land
There the fool enjoyed special license to ridicule pretense and turn upside down social rituals and solemnities, including the dignity of the king himself.
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
We have a farm upstate, " he says, leaning forward a bit, picking up his wineglass without the least bit of theater or pretense.
She could no longer keep up a pretense of bonhomie: his tone was irritating her. GALILEE
Address; for if I had told my Father or Mother, I shou'd but have embarrass'd them in a difficult Business, for it ill befitted them to profer their Daughter in Marriage, and disagreeable, to leave me to struggle with my own Passion, and his Pretences, without taking any The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
Europhiles are all about pretenses as well as creating and maintaining the aura of respectableness, indispensability and indisputability around their pretenses. The Economist: Daily news and views
Ten years passing only heightens his status as a true street poet, devoid of current bling-bling pretense and full of scathing wit and sharp charm.
Barry's body slumps, as if tired of the pretence of being strong and unemotional.
He didn't like the food, but he made a pretence of eating some of it as he was a guest.
Another, a "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a pressgang," appeared at Dublin in 1743, where they boldly entered public-houses on pretence of looking for sailors, and there extorted money and drink. The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore
In the morning sow thy seed upon the objects of charity that offer themselves early, and in the evening do not withhold thy hand, under pretence that thou art weary; as thou hast opportunity, be doing good, some way or other, all the day long, as the husbandman follows his seedness from morning till night. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
She covered her retreat nobly, made a curtsey to the priests, genuflected calmly, laid down the aspergill, and, under pretence of having been sent for something which these careless priests had forgotten, retired with honors; and then I suppose had a good long cry. My New Curate
The nuances, exaggerations and pretences of conversation can be taken literally.
Thus he dismissed as insubstantial any pretence to an absolute form of knowledge, which seeks to soar above the resistant medium of experience.
Under the pretense of authenticity and accuracy, news docudramas take unacceptable license with the truth.
Even more germanely, in his essays, he condemns the appropriation of Native stories by nonAboriginal writers as well as the latter's pretence of going Native.
I love the lack of pretense in East Boston, which is why now I still visit the old hood because it's still home.
No man of any literary name condescended even to the pretence of religion; but in England, infidelity was a stigma; when it began to take a public form, it was only in the vilest quarter; and when it assailed religion, it was instantly put down at once by the pen, by the law, and by the more decisive tribunal of national opinion. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847
The thought is wiredrawn to inanity, but the words make it perfectly clear that the poet was the only one of the lady's lovers -- to the definite exclusion of all others -- whose name justified the quibbling pretence of identity with the 'will' which controls her being. A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles
If you want a pretence to whip a dog, say that he ate the frying-pam.
The pretence is to negotiate; the purpose is to separate. The Value of Canada, the Risks it Faces
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
She was unable to keep up the pretence that she loved him.
The novel makes no pretence of providing unambiguous answers, but takes us on a beguiling, questing journey. Times, Sunday Times
In the portraits, sitters appear shorn of pretense and disguise.
We were pranked on the pretense of getting a job.
I admire the brawny bravado of the pretence, but I'm not convinced.
Why not call it "surviving," or "discovering," or something at least with a pretense of meaning? Bienvenidos a San Blas, a short story
The free enterprise pretense is today, again, providing profit to a small number of people and corporations. Matthew Yglesias » Not in Vermont’s Back Yard
“I saw your desire of saving Madame Duval, and scarce could I refrain giving the brutal Captain my real opinion of his savage conduct; but I am unwilling to quarrel with him, lest I should be denied entrance into a house which you inhabit; I have been endeavouring to prevail with him to give up his absurd new scheme, but I find him impenetrable: — I have therefore determined to make a pretense for suddenly leaving this place, dear as it is to me, and containing all I most admire and adore; - and I will stay in town till the violence of this boobyish humour is abated.” Evelina
For example, SCOTUS has abandoned wide swaths of the law, as anywhere from 60â80% of its threadbare docket is dedicated to resolving conflicts between various courts of appeals, and it has abandoned any and all pretense of policing irregular, censurable, and otherwise outright cor�rupt decisions of our inferior appellate courts, with instances of pure error correction occurring so rarely as to be remarkable. The Volokh Conspiracy » Rosen on Sotomayor, PartÂ Tres:
Society is a tissue of pretense: convention a fleeting fantom. Reno — a Book of Short Stories and Information
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character. James Russell Lowell
Anyone suffering guilt for the rebellion against all social niceties would have kept up the pretence that she didn't want any water, at least until I had left the building.
There is no pretense of objectivity; this is a subjective film, a personal film.
With regard to these wretched, horrible, bloody lumps of caramel gunge, he had constructed a whole covert, hidden, humiliating world of pretence and lies, sneaking around pharmacies and stores to find his fix, inventing a serious disease for himself to cover an addiction as compelling and overpowering as if it had been heroin that enslaved him. Portobello
The peace-seeking pretense was dripping with charade in the months before the invasion.
In such cases the girl "should bring him to her house under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks and rams, of hearing the maina (a kind of starling) talk .... she should also amuse him for a long time by telling him such stories and doing such things as he may take most delight in. The Life of Sir Richard Burton
Describing the film as a reflection of life in present India, the film-maker points out that the roles the characters play within the film become their masks and pretence to higher moral ground.
But the biggest pretense is that Georgia is supported by the West. Russia has called the West’s bluff « Isegoria
As in the previous volume, any pretence to scholarship goes out the window when no specific source is given for the great majority of quotations or the books from which analysis is drawn.
Had he been the kind of letterless country fellow, or bookless fellow whom the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood describe, the contemporary witnesses cited must have detected Will in a day; and the story of the "Concealed Poet" who really, at first, did the additions and changes in the Company's older manuscript plays, and of the inconceivably impudent pretences of Will of Stratford, would have kept the town merry for a month. Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown
And how would the time spent by the presenters of ‘happenings’ and other such phony pretences of art be measured?
The walk would be an in-the-flesh demonstration, without pomp and pretence, as to just how in touch with real life our officials at City Hall are, or are not.
Those that love to boast of their business and make a noise about it, and that waste their time in tittle-tattle, in telling and hearing new things, like the Athenians, and, under pretence of improving themselves by conversation, neglect the work of their place and day, they waste what they have, and the course they take tends to penury, and will end in it. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
Saoud had indeed once given orders, that none of these Turkish pilgrims, who still flocked from Yembo to this tomb, even after the interruption of the regular pilgrim-caravans, should any more be permitted to enter Medina: and this he did to prevent what he called their idolatrous praying; a practice which it was impossible to abolish without excluding them at once from the mosque; this prohibition Saoud did not think proper to enforce: he therefore preferred keeping them from the city, under pretence that their improper behaviour rendered such a proceeding necessary. Travels in Arabia
With colleagues he was “tolerant (and) uncensorious” (Warnock, xiv), but in philosophical debate he could turn into a formidable opponent, expressing an intense dislike of pomposity, pretence and jargon (Urmson, 271; Gallop, 228). Gilbert Ryle
Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense, and native intelligence. April « 2008 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground
He skulked into the room under the pretence of finding himself a drink.
There is no pretense, no artifice, no meaning, other than what you carry out after you've wiped the fiftieth tear of laughter out of your eye.
The pretence of a socio-cultural vacuum is functional to avoid the moral nuisances that arise when we address cultural diversity with mainstreaming and resocialisation. Culture Matters
FROM OVID. tjy retous churl, of unforgiving kind aider to the bloody prieft refign'd: iger was no plea; for that (he dy'd» it came next in order, to be tiy'd: it had cropt the tendrils of the viner since laity and clergy join, me had loft his profit, one his wine* is at leaft, fome (hadow of offence: ep was facrinVd on no pretence,, The works of the English poets. With prefaces, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson
The pretence that they are working to unite the party will have gone. Times, Sunday Times
The research project will focus on children's comprehension of pretence.
Chinese and Indian workers are more likely to skip off work under the false pretence of illness than their French and Mexican counterparts, a new study showed.
It is about time the party stopped its pretence of acting on behalf of all the people when the only people it represents are the well off, big business and the privileged.
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
On my last day, we abandoned all pretence of tourism and spent the day at my hotel. Times, Sunday Times
She claimed that Proctors had cancelled lectures on the pretence of security fears in a deliberate attempt to divide student opinion.
Are we to suppose then that the insanity of the third character, the Fool, is, in this respect, a mere repetition of that of the second, the beggar, -- that it too is _mere_ pretence? Shakespearean Tragedy Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
The main reason I feel this is that when you date, pretense and airs are, well, up in the air.
This utterly engaging and thoroughly likeable book masquerades under the pretence of being a search for ‘the perfect meal’.
It appears that the communicative competence is better displayed when children engage in pretense situations.
It means that we let go of posturing and pretence and live simply as we are, in truth, at ease with ourselves and with others, not having to worry about who's up or who's down, who's in or who's out.
Ron is all faux pretense and made-up mischievousness.
I envied the animals for their absolute lack of pretense and their unwillingness to intellectualize.
At the same time, she would inscribe a self that is so multiple and mutable as to subvert, by its very nature, any pretence to stability - much less the transcendence of a single identity.
This statement represents the old doctrine in regard to obtaining property by false pretences, to which I shall advert presently.
With skin the colour of milky tea and glassy eyes that betray his misery, there's never any pretence towards polished musicianship.
The men in this neighborhood made no pretense about who they thought were beddable.
Zhou Yilun is very bold to abandon restraint, face to the most primitive and true instinct of human, and the desire, expansion, putridity and pretence that growing from instinct.
In using the term ‘horrifying’, I am not including am-dram productions of The King and I, which never had any serious pretense to quality.
Eyebrows were often raised when a player would disappear suddenly from the tour, sometimes under false pretence. Times, Sunday Times
A country that wants to see real improvements in real services - not posturing and pretence.
But the solution would represent such a dramatic reversal of age-old Catholic doctrine as to undermine any pretense of papal infallibility.
The first group make a living by pretence; the second are masters of subterfuge for whom truth, in the form of exposure, can be deadly.
By the end of the evening she had abandoned all pretence of being interested.
WORDS ACCENTED ON THE LAST SYLLABLE: address _address'_ adept _adept'_ adult _adult'_ ally _ally'_ commandant _commandänt '(ä as in arm) _ contour _contour'_ dessert _dessert'_ dilate _dilate'_ excise _eksiz'_ finance _finance'_ grimace _grimace'_ importune _importune'_ occult _occult'_ pretence _pretence'_ research _research'_ robust _robust'_ romance _romance'_ tirade _tirade'_ Practical Grammar and Composition
The thieves got into the house under false pretences, by saying they had come to repair the water taps.
Pretense cannot sustain blind power. Dejan Stojanovic
Accordingly, the Pithamarda should bring the man to her house, under the pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks, and rams, of hearing the mania (a kind of starling) talk, or of seeing some other spectacle, or the practice of some art; or he may take the woman to the abode of the man. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
The archbishop being with the gonfalonier, under pretense of having something to communicate on the part of the pope, addressed him in such an incoherent and hesitating manner, that the gonfalonier at once suspected him, and rushing out of the chamber to call assistance, found Jacopo di The History of Florence
With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called truthfulness, while the pretence which exaggerates is boastfulness and the person characterized by it a boaster, and that which understates is mock modesty and the person characterized by it mock-modest. The Nicomachean Ethics
This call for honesty, the dropping of macho pretence, is central. Times, Sunday Times
In lucid prose, he shreds pretenses and pretexts and demands consistent, bright lines.
‘By recognizing such a pretence, as a legitimate apology,’ he declared, ‘we authorize the tippler to tipple on.’
Be niggards of advice on no pretence, For the worst avarice is that of Sense.
Don Quijote's pretense at madness and further references to Mambrino's basin, is starting to convince Sancho that his master is indeed batty and he tells him so.
Now all pretence was laid aside, and the knights arrayed themselves in their full battle gear and rode out on their previously concealed chargers to meet the enemy.
That's the sound of hot air escaping after pretense is punctured by a pointed question. A Voice from the Middle Ground
I can not tell what it is that letteth me, from causing thee to be caste foorthe amonges the Lions (cruell and capitall enemies of adulterie, amonges themselues) sithe thy pretence is, by violating my chastitie to dishonour the house, whereunto thou owest no lesse, then al the aduancements thou hast: from the taste whereof thou hast abandoned The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1
This statement represents the old doctrine in regard to obtaining property by false pretences, to which I shall advert presently.
I found that to mix in the world, it is necessary not only to have an attaghan, but also to have the courage to use it; and in several broils which took place, from my too frequent use of the water of the Giaour, I invariably proved, that although my voice was that of a lion, my heart was but as water, and the finger of contempt was but too often pointed at the beard of pretence. The Pacha of Many Tales
Pretense, whispers, deceit, all to hide the same opinion that the "resuscitated" commander now flippantly tosses out to foreign journalist. Yoani Sanchez: Fidel Castro Joins the Opposition
There is no pretense, no artifice, no meaning, other than what you carry out after you've wiped the fiftieth tear of laughter out of your eye.
Altman strips away the pretence and mythology to expose the film industry as a business like any other.
The body, like gardens, is still a terrain manipulated by the demands of style, fashion and pretense. Michael Jackson as Landscape Architecture
He speaks, indeed, without artifice or pretence. Times, Sunday Times
On the pavement a woman with no pretence to fashion (or else obedient to an ugly fashion) came past, too brightly dressed in a sack overcoat of goatskin; but no, it was not a woman, it was a chauffeur who, enveloped in his ponyskin, was proceeding on foot to his garage. The Captive
Faces were stripped of pretence by the pitiless bombardment of harsh reality.
‘I once told a massager he had magic hands, that was embarrassing,’ I blurted, without thought to set up the background of my story or pretence.
We believe these Rules are violated whenever an attorney 'friends' an individual under false pretenses to obtain evidence from a social networking website. Bill Singer: Danger: Legal Sharks Circle Online Posters
Limbaugh already has his Black Shirt and has passed from merely feeding from the situation to an arrogance of pretense. The Paranoid Rightwing
He can even be forgiven for terming some of the ringleaders of the dissatisfaction ‘rotten tomatoes’, as it seems clear they got some staff to sign a petition under false pretences.
The stock-market became a ‘people-friendly’ place with no space for snobs, hierarchies, elitism and pretence.
The lowest part of the shelter, four catwalks below my billet and just over the engineering spaces, was cut like a pie into four quarters-sanitary units, two sick bays, for 'men and for women and both crowded~~L~and jammed into a little corner between the infirmaries was a sorry pretense for a nursery, not more than two meters in any dimension. Podkayne Of Mars
These works maintain a quiet, inviting tone all the more captivating for their utter lack of pretense.
They'd not brought him the head simply to humor him, though that might be their pretense. THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW
At length the hour of noon arrived; she had taken care to provide, under pretence of her own wishes, which the pantler seemed disposed to indulge, such articles of food as could be the most easily conveyed to the unhappy captive. The Fair Maid of Perth
Following Bismarck's lead, both of them had dropped the pretence of calling me "highness" -- Bersonin's "theory", as Bismarck had called it, being well enough in my training period, I suppose, but now considered unnecessary. Royal Flash
The novel is also natural in the sense of man's everyday life, done without pretence and pose.
The atheists around here seem to have no problem throwing around implicit and explicit "shoulds" and "oughts" that have the pretense of Something Really Important. Contentment
Under the pretense of authenticity and accuracy, news docudramas take unacceptable license with the truth.
And the cherry on this sundae is we get to destroy any pretense of a “green” agenda in the process. Matthew Yglesias » Tax Breaks for Car Buyers
At the end of the day, though, the Microsoft does not outright deny what The New York Times claims is happening -- Russian authorities are using Microsoft "antipiracy" raids as a pretense to seize opponents property. DailyTech Main News Feed
Marriage has been reduced to the necessary pretenses of true love.
Increasingly, government representatives are jettisoning any pretense of opposition to war.
Of course, once he spoke of Lulu, all pretense was abandoned. THE LAST REPORT ON THE MIRACLES AT LITTLE NO HORSE: A NOVEL
The former live their lives within a rigid moralism and behavioral codes and have a supercilious social pretense.
Besides, he has no tolerance for the pomp, pageantry and pretense of the whole show.
I also laughed uproariously when two of the Jackasses, dressed in marching band uniforms, climbed into a pen with a very aggressive ram, under the pretense of trying to sooth the savage beast with music. Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Jackass 3D
-- In all ages -- for example, in the case of Luther -- ". aith" has been no more than a cloak, a pretense, a curtain behind which the instincts have played their game -- a shrewd blindness to the domination of certain of the instincts ... The Antichrist
Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance. George Bernard Shaw
Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance. George Bernard Shaw
The woman could sue him for scaring the piss out of her under false pretenses, but then, he could countersue for grievous bodily dog bites. Margaret Atwood | Underbrush Man
Were I lying, then I would simply bestow upon you some vague time in the future, so as to draw things out for pretenses and falsehoods.
Allow no man, under any pretense, to despoil you of your virtue. A Renegade History of the United States
He exudes brisk, straightforward confidence, without pretense or misgiving. The Last Ace
Nick sang out cheerfully as he made a great pretense of picking up his books and stuffing a couple of pencils in the top of his pigskin puttee. Shelled by an Unseen Foe
As he hovers between life and death, another patient, the hypochondriacal Sally Druse, checks herself in under false pretenses.
What bank, loan shark, or regular citizen would fund a desperado living a hand-to-mouth existence under false pretenses? OUTCAST
Your father can't see us beyond those firs, where the canal slows to a standstill into a pool of grace: that would be the end of illusion, of pretense, the fire-retardant curtains opening to reveal the patio and its ficus.
Those holding power as a main or sub tone will trigger the veils to be lifted upon all others that wish to manipulate a circumstance into being other than what it is, or put on pretenses of any kind.
In all these, the common denominator is the willingness, eagerness, or desperation to eschew all pretense of privacy, discretion, decorum, and personal space to expose mind, body and soul in any and all ways possible the sleazier, more embarrassing or self-immolating, the better! Lorraine Devon Wilke: You're Not Keeping Up With The Kardashians Either
If the U.S. wants to prosecute Gary, let his trial find out the real truth about UFOs, since the real coverup is that Gary is going to be a scapegoat to hide the truth from the British and American People, under the pretense of hacking charges, so we will all continue to be scared sheep, watching the Tele from the safety of our living rooms. New Gary McKinnon petition online
Tollitt made no pretense of being surprised.
These works maintain a quiet, inviting tone all the more captivating for their utter lack of pretense.
Once she's descended again, she stops at a payphone to call the secretary away from her desk on a pretense, then the carabinieri, to inform them of the explosion, now seconds away.
In so doing, all nine justices recognized that a dead person retains an interest in a good reputation - shattering the common pretense that this was not true.
Such persons truly, by external works, strenuously labor to deserve well at the hands of God; but, retaining a heart inwrapped in deceit, they present to him nothing but a mask; so that, in their labourious and anxious religious worship, there is nothing sincere, nothing but mere pretense. Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1
Given that most of the offenses discussed are statutory crimes and that Conyers now admits to the impeachability of the guilty parties, the new pretense is shaky. Conyers Explains Why He Hasn't Impeached
Lorimer had no pretense to musical talent; asked, he confessed he could "strum a little," and he seemed to see the evident wonder and admiration he awakened in the minds of many to whom such "strumming" as his was infinitely more delightful than more practiced, finished playing. Thelma
Code like a kind of jurisprudential minefield: Crimes like "false statements" (a felony, up to five years), "obstructing the mails" (five years), or "false pretenses on the high seas" (also five years). Archive 2007-10-14
By puncturing their smug self-righteousness and their pretense to impossibly high standards, Flashman shows them as genuinely great men and women, not the panegyrical statuary of Victorian literature—and he shows them as such by describing their response to him. Archive 2009-03-01
What should they have done, one of those fake long sloppy kisses in pretense done by couples that probably haven't touched each other in years? Obama 'fist bump' catching on
The suggestion that people are arbitrarily reliving the past and exploiting it under the pretense of creating art strikes her as an affront.
Hyper-tokenism embraces the widely accepted notion that we are all pretending, and further insinuates that pretenses can be more or less complete, more or less willed.
The boring mannerliness of pseudocommunity is a pretense devoted to fleeing from anything that might cause healthy as well as unhealthy conflict. THE DIFFERENT DRUM
false pretenses
Were I lying, then I would simply bestow upon you some vague time in the future, so as to draw things out for pretenses and falsehoods.
Rivers ran anywhither, just as the haphazard slope of earth's crevices directed; upon the map you saw quite clearly that their streams neither balanced one another nor watered the land with any pretense of equity. The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasions
The real scandal is that a newspaper that once had some pretense to quality now prints ignorant drivel like this.
Especially when O'Reilly is on, they're responding to brilliant TV, and if you ever rolled your eyes at Walter Cronkite's plummy version of papal infallibility, you can appreciate why O'Reilly's barroom contempt for traditional newscasts 'smugness has its appeal, even if you know his pretense that their bias is flamingly liberal, rather than blandly institutional, is a crock. The Murdoch Touch
Jets fly low over the area on an almost daily basis, livestock is impounded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the pretense that resisters are "overgrazing" the land, and, due to the special Bennet Freeze clause of P. L.93-531 (which foresaw the possibility of a resistance) Dine people living on what is now Hopi Partitioned Land cannot legally upgrade their housing (i.e. repair a hole in their roof during the winter) without facing the threat of arrest because they no longer legally own the property their families have lived on for centuries. - Front Page
I finish off with Too Similar and give her a quick backrub, qualify her on my standards, then we extract to Club Jeffy, under the pretense of “smoking weed.” Get Laid or Die Trying
What bank, loan shark, or regular citizen would fund a desperado living a hand-to-mouth existence under false pretenses? OUTCAST
All the players involved in this charade understand they are acting on the flimsiest of pretenses; it's just that relying on polls is so much easier than actually reporting or leading.
This gap refers to the lack of opportunities to engage in pretense and exploration with language that occurs through free play in the classroom.
Hyper-tokenism embraces the widely accepted notion that we are all pretending, and further insinuates that pretenses can be more or less complete, more or less willed.
But true appreciation of wine derives from the realization that it is meant to be shared with those around us, without pretense or affectation, in proper measure, and as an enhancement to our lives.
The pretense is the result of terror of rejection, just as it is in the Middle Class form, though reasons for possible rejection are worlds apart from the Middle Class conditioning. A PRIMER ON UNLEARNING CLASSISM
Marriage has been reduced to the necessary pretenses of true love.
And a waiting moment was enough - she and I yet again flinging every possible limit aside, deciding on all manner of pretense and affectation.
In a way it's a story of letting go of expectations and pretense, of breaking down facades and accepting what's beneath as beautiful.
They obtained money under the false pretenses of patriotism.
After all its just a thrown together bunch of experiences with the narrowest of pretenses holding it all together.
In many Middle Class homes the pretense is enforced as hard or harder than it is in public, in an effort to "prepare one for the big bad world". A PRIMER ON UNLEARNING CLASSISM
All the players involved in this charade understand they are acting on the flimsiest of pretenses; it's just that relying on polls is so much easier than actually reporting or leading.
Perhaps its most memorable scene contrasts the naive simplicity of its protagonist with the poetic pretense of a production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: the hero is so artless himself that he responds as though the play were real.
Besides we all KNOW that getting a bj is much worse than starting an illegal immoral war under false pretenses … or is “pretense” just another fancy liberal word for a “lie?” Think Progress » Don’t call it a comeback:
Sometimes the best offense is a ghoulish pretense.
In which case, its either one hull and a pretense to air-cover or no royal navy air cover at all. criss whicker John Terry’s sacking as England captain tells us something interesting...
In so doing, all nine justices recognized that a dead person retains an interest in a good reputation - shattering the common pretense that this was not true.
Besides, he has no tolerance for the pomp, pageantry and pretense of the whole show.

How To Use Pretense In A Sentence

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