Word.ws English Dictionary

false pretense

false pretense noun: a representation made of untrue assertions in order to convey a false impression.

Noun

false pretense (plural false pretenses)

  1. (US) A representation made of untrue assertions in order to convey a false impression.
    • She enrolled at the university under false pretenses, giving an invented birth date and lying about her qualifications.

Forms of false pretense

pluralfalse pretenses
alternative formfalse pretence

Questions about false pretense

What does false pretense mean?
False pretense means a representation made of untrue assertions in order to convey a false impression.
What part of speech is false pretense?
False pretense is a noun.
What is the plural of false pretense?
The plural of false pretense is false pretenses.

Words near false pretense in the dictionary

  1. false potato beetles
  2. false pregnancies
  3. false pregnancy
  4. false pretence
  5. false pretences
  6. false pretense
  7. false pretenses
  8. false primaries
  9. false primary
  10. false quarter
  11. false quarters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: false pretense (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “false pretense.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/false_pretense. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.