trying to appear important, intelligent, etc. in order to impress other people; trying to be something that you are not, in order to impress That's a pretentious name for a dog! It was just an ordinary house—nothing pretentious. He's so pretentious! compare unpretentious
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
adverb
noun [uncountable] There was no hint of pretentiousness in her manner.See pretentious in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Check pronunciation: pretentious