pretension

In some ways the films seem to invite accusations of pretension, of reach exceeding grasp and grandeur stretched into grandiosity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

The air of prestige and haughty pretension that surrounds even the mere mention of the Cannes Film Festival might not conjure the words “shark movie” in your mind.

From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2025

There was a baby-knit culotte and matching polo with Gucci stripe detailing, worn without pretension.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 22, 2023

But embedded in such restrictions one may infer either a resistance to having his work pushed to the fringes, or a pretension in contextualizing it as a mainstream experience.

From New York Times ● Aug. 7, 2023

We have responded to this distant Austrian’s voice across the years and the continents so spontaneously because his music seems simply to flow out of him, intuitively, without cynicism or intellectual pretension.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

He is also a deft social satirist, no more so than when skewering his characters’ politically correct pretensions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

In Britain, the “angry young men” movement led by John Osborne in the theater was underway, and the social pretensions and expertly crafted witticisms of Coward’s comedies had fallen out of fashion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

And directors Bailey and Barbato seem intent on casting Louisville as a place of poseurs and pretensions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026

Reflecting on the press, he later noted, "The press has pretensions of being a crusader but is more often a preserver of the status quo."

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2025

How pallid by comparison are the pretensions of superstition and pseudoscience; how important it is for us to pursue and understand science, that characteristically human endeavor.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan