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# pretense

«pretense» in Mova's school dictionary: **a false show, where someone acts as if something is true…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (pretenses); British spelling is «pretence»

### meaning for a pupil

A pretense is a false show, where someone acts as if something is true when it is not. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pretense/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

in tales a trick where a character pretends to be something he is not, to fool another

### examples

- He came to the king on the pretense of being a servant. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pretense/#x1)
- Under the pretense of buying the hare, the man stole it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pretense/#x2)
- The cat made a pretense of being asleep. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pretense/#x3)

### note

nothing for maths

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «pretense» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pretense/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.