"pretentious" | Definition and Related Words

Adjective

Making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction (synset 301855216)
"a pretentious country house"; "a pretentious fraud"; "a pretentious scholarly edition"

also: tasteless - lacking aesthetic or social taste
similar to:
- arty - showily imitative of art or artists
- artsy-craftsy, arty-crafty - pretentiously artistic; cloyingly charming
- grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous - puffed up with vanity
- grandiose, hifalutin, highfalutin, highfaluting, hoity-toity, la-di-da - affectedly genteel
- high-flown, high-sounding, inflated - pretentious (especially with regard to language or ideals)
- jumped-up - (British informal) upstart
- nouveau-riche, parvenu, parvenue, upstart - characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position
- sententious - abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing
- sesquipedalian - given to the overuse of long words
Intended to attract notice and impress others (synset 301854283)
"an ostentatious sable coat"
similar to:
- flaunty - inclined to flaunt
- flamboyant, showy, splashy - marked by ostentation but often tasteless
same as: ostentatious
(of a display) tawdry or vulgar (synset 302403542)
similar to: tasteless - lacking aesthetic or social taste

same as: ostentatious