Word.ws English Dictionary

prætentious

prætentious is the alternative spelling of pretentious.

Meaning of pretentious

Adjective

pretentious (comparative more pretentious, superlative most pretentious)

  1. Motivated by an inappropriate, excessive, or unjustified desire to impress others.
    • Her dress was obviously more pretentious than comfortable.
  2. Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction.
    • Their song titles are pretentious in the context of their basic lyrics.
  3. (obsolete, perhaps incorrect) Marked by pretense (not necessarily false pretense); intent upon success; ambitious.
    • ... the first definite and pretentious attempt to make the wardrobe trunk a commercial possibility ... The new trunk would be exploited direct to the traveling public, and he had the means for a pretentious start.1917 January, “Season 1917”, in Trunks, Leather Goods, and Umbrellas, volume 39, number 1, page 54

Forms of prætentious

comparativemore prætentious
superlativemost prætentious

Questions about prætentious

What is prætentious the alternative spelling of?
Prætentious is the alternative spelling of pretentious.

Words near prætentious in the dictionary

  1. prætends
  2. prætense
  3. prætenses
  4. prætension
  5. prætensions
  6. prætentious
  7. præter-
  8. præterite
  9. præterition
  10. præternatural
  11. prætexta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prætentious (page history and authors); pretentious (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.

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Cite this entry: “prætentious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pr%C3%A6tentious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.