pretend
Definitions
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WordNet 3.6
- adj pretend imagined as in a play "the make-believe world of theater","play money","dangling their legs in the water to catch pretend fish"
- v pretend state insincerely "He professed innocence but later admitted his guilt","She pretended not to have known the suicide bomber","She pretends to be an expert on wine"
- v pretend make believe with the intent to deceive "He feigned that he was ill","He shammed a headache"
- v pretend represent fictitiously, as in a play, or pretend to be or act like "She makes like an actress"
- v pretend put forward, of a guess, in spite of possible refutation "I am guessing that the price of real estate will rise again","I cannot pretend to say that you are wrong"
- v pretend behave unnaturally or affectedly "She's just acting"
- v pretend put forward a claim and assert right or possession of "pretend the title of King"
- n pretend the enactment of a pretense "it was just pretend"
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
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Interesting fact: In Bromide, Oklahoma it is illegal for children to use towels as capes and jump from houses pretending to be superman.
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- Pretend To hold before one; to extend. "His target always over her pretended ."
- Pretend To hold before, or put forward, as a cloak or disguise for something else; to exhibit as a veil for something hidden. "Lest that too heavenly form, pretended To hellish falsehood, snare them."
- Pretend To hold out the appearance of being, possessing, or performing; to profess; to make believe; to feign; to sham; as, to pretend to be asleep. "He pretended to drink the waters."
- Pretend To hold out, or represent, falsely; to put forward, or offer, as true or real (something untrue or unreal); to show hypocritically, or for the purpose of deceiving; to simulate; to feign; as, to pretend friendship. "This let him know,
Lest, willfully transgressing, he pretend Surprisal." - Pretend To intend; to design; to plot; to attempt. "Such as shall pretend Malicious practices against his state."
- Pretend To lay a claim to; to allege a title to; to claim. "Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend ."
- Pretend To put in, or make, a claim, truly or falsely; to allege a title; to lay claim to, or strive after, something; -- usually with to. "Countries that pretend to freedom.""For to what fine he would anon pretend ,
That know I well." - ***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
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Interesting fact: A guy wearing pantyhose on his face tried to rob a store in a mall. When security came, he quickly grabbed a shopping bag and pretended to be shopping, forgetting that he was still wearing the pantyhose. He was captured and his loot was returned to the store.
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- pretend To hold out before one or in front; stretch forward; hence, to put before one for action, consideration, or acceptance; offer; present.
- pretend To put forward as a statement or an assertion; especially, to allege or declare falsely or with intent to deceive.
- pretend To put forward as a reason or excuse; use as a pretext; allege as a ground or reason; hence, to put forward a false appearance of; simulate; counterfeit; feign.
- pretend To lay claim to; assert as a right or possession; claim.
- pretend To aspire to; attempt; undertake.
- pretend To intend; design; plan; plot.
- pretend To presage; portend; forebode.
- pretend To stretch or reach forward; aim; aspire: often with to.
- pretend To lay claim; assert a right of ownership or possession: generally followed by to.
- pretend To make pretense; make believe; counterfeit or feign.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
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- v.t Pretend prē-tend′ to hold out as a cloak for something else: to lay claim to: to attempt, undertake: to offer as true something that is not so: to affect to feel:
- v.i Pretend to put in a claim: to make-believe
- v.t Pretend prē-tend′ (obs.) to offer, present
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Quotations
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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” -
“Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical.” -
“I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.” -
“Who can direct when all pretend to know?” -
“It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.” -
“We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend.”
Etymology
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
OE. pretenden, to lay claim to, F. prétendre, L. praetendere, praetentum, to stretch forward, pretend, simulate, assert; prae, before + tendere, to stretch. See Tend (v. t.)
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Fr. prétendre—L. prætendĕre—præ, before, tendĕre, tentum, tensum, to stretch.
Usage
In literature:
The fox began to run and pretended to be in great terror.
"Italian Popular Tales" by Thomas Frederick Crane
You should hear her talking to father and pretending that she thinks fishing nice.
"Lalage's Lovers" by George A. Birmingham
He and Ruskin set a certain cant afloat, for every fad and pose which pretends to be sober and earnest must have a cant.
"Folkways" by William Graham Sumner
In the succeeding reign an alchymist appeared who pretended to have discovered the secret.
"Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay
To send it by post, pretending to be ill again, would be hypocrisy he could not support.
"The Manxman A Novel - 1895" by Hall Caine
I'm not going to pretend that I didn't notice frictions and irritations.
"The Kingdom Round the Corner" by Coningsby Dawson
The pretended Cadi took his seat and commanded that Abul Hassan and Ali Cogia should be brought before him.
"Tales of Folk and Fairies" by Katharine Pyle
Well, I don't pretend to direct people's diet.
"The Humbugs of the World" by P. T. Barnum
Then he staggered forward and pretended to fall.
"The Dodge Club" by James De Mille
But he was pretending, and he didn't know how far he had come.
"The Doers" by William John Hopkins
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In poetry:
"This is the man did once pretend
God was his Father and his Friend
If God the blessed loved him so,
Why doth he fail to help him now?"
God was his Father and his Friend
If God the blessed loved him so,
Why doth he fail to help him now?"
"Psalm 22" by Isaac Watts
With giant’s blood he besmear’d himself,
And besmear’d his steed all o’er;
Then back he rides to King Diderik,
Pretends to be wounded sore.
And besmear’d his steed all o’er;
Then back he rides to King Diderik,
Pretends to be wounded sore.
"Vidrik Verlandson (From The Old Danish) " by George Borrow
"All these things I know, I know.
And that's why my heart is breaking!"
"Then what do you gain by pretending so?"
"The joy of an old wound waking."
And that's why my heart is breaking!"
"Then what do you gain by pretending so?"
"The joy of an old wound waking."
"The Oldest Song" by Rudyard Kipling
'Twere folly to pretend
I never begged before;
Or if thou now befriend,
I'll trouble thee no more:
Thou often hast relieved my pain,
And often I must come again.
I never begged before;
Or if thou now befriend,
I'll trouble thee no more:
Thou often hast relieved my pain,
And often I must come again.
"The Beggar" by John Newton
Each thought he was thinking of nothing but "Snark"
And the glorious work of the day;
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark
That the other was going that way.
And the glorious work of the day;
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark
That the other was going that way.
"The Hunting Of The Snark " by Lewis Carroll
No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,
And dream that he had found one.
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,
And dream that he had found one.
"Friendship" by William Cowper
In news:
Pretender Contenders for a playoff spot, but pretenders for the Stanley Cup.
Pretender Like the Rangers, the Habs are contenders for a playoff spot, but pretenders for the Cup.
2 Roma that looks very likely -- no one will be allowed to call the Nerazzurri pretenders any longer.
A man wanted for murder pretends to be a New York Times reporter.
The group would interpret the hits of others, and in a sense, they were the great pretenders .
They pretended they hadn't heard.
Pretending to be professional in New York is hard work.
Despite the famous last name — and the fact that he plays the same instrument as his father — Ravi Coltrane, son of jazz icons John (sax) and Alice (piano), doesn't pretend to be anything more than just a saxophonist.
I HAVE friends who pretend to have allergies so they can avoid getting pets for their children, which I find shameful on many levels.
Pretend to be snowbound, with a really great menu.
When the airlines of every nation seemed to consist of Boeing and Douglas jets, Washington could pretend that there was a free market in aircraft.
Mets are not the Yankees, but do they have to pretend they're the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Which teams do you believe are the contenders and pretenders.
I find the whole thing of pretending embarrassing.
KFFMDon't be pretending you don't have a stash of snacks available somewhere in your office – usually in one of your desk drawers.
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In science:
Obviously, the model is rather simple and specific to pretend to describe properly any real biological system.
The simplest model of spatially distributed population with reasonable migration of organisms
In general, the qualitative effect of fitting parameters but pretending that they were known before the data was taken is that the p-value is not distributed uniformly.
A Test Statistic for Weighted Runs
This form of information hiding seems to be fundamental for modern computing where the large ma jority of users users cannot conceivably pretend to understand how their boxes arrive at their observed behavior.
Informal Control code logic
With these new definitions, Theorems 4.1 and 4.2 remain valid, and we can still use Theorem 4.3 to numerically compute each maximin m by pretending [m] = {Pm}, i.e., by temporarily quantizer ¯φmax discarding other states in [m].
Asymptotic Optimality Theory For Decentralized Sequential Multihypothesis Testing Problems
It is easy to verify that once we associate the completedata test with the normal model (i.e., pretending the large-sample approximation is exact), the denominator of RI1 is the same as the denominator of Doss’s RIw as given in his (5).
Rejoinder: Quantifying the Fraction of Missing Information for Hypothesis Testing in Statistical and Genetic Studies
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