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. Addison . Frederick, in a public manifesto, appealed to the Empire against the insolent pretensions of the pope. Milman.

The house of the lord of a manor; a manor house; hence: Any house of considerable size or pretension.

To make a false profession; to make pretensions to skill which is not possessed.

a par, on a level; in the same condition, circumstances, position, rank, etc.; as, their pretensions are on a par; his ability is on a par with his ambition. -- Par of exchange. See under Exchange. -- Par value, nominal value; face value.

an upper story; -- usually applied to mediævel or later structures of some architectural pretensions.

formal observance of rites and ceremonies and of the traditions of the elders, and whose pretensions to superior sanctity led them to separate themselves from the other Jews.

Not highly cultivated; unsophisticated; free from show or pretension; simple; natural; homely; common. "Plain yet pious Christians." Hammond. "The plain people." A. Lincoln.

The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. Spenser. Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power. Locke. I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford. Evelyn.

Full of pretension; disposed to lay claim to more than is one's; presuming; assuming. -- Pre*ten"tious*ly, adv. -- Pre*ten"tious*ness, n.

being pretty; -- used sometimes in a disparaging sense. A style . . . without sententious pretension or antithetical prettiness. Jeffrey.

To make vain and loud pretensions; to boast. " To quack of universal cures." Hudibras.

The acts, arts, or boastful pretensions of a quack; false pretensions to any art; empiricism. Carlyle.

To withdraw a claim or pretension; to desist; to relinquish what had been proposed or asserted; as, to recede from a demand or proposition.

made; residue. "I think so," is the whole residuum . . . after evaporating the prodigious pretensions of the zealot demagogue. L. Taylor.

Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority; as, rival lovers; rival claims or pretensions. The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen. Macaulay.

John ix. 39. Many sagacious persons will find us out, . . . and see through all our fine pretensions. Tillotson.

of life; as, to set up in trade; to set up for one's self. (b) To profess openly; to make pretensions. Those men who set up for mortality without regard to religion, are generally but virtuous in part. Swift.

A country seat; a country or suburban residence of some pretensions to elegance. Dryden. Cowper.

One who makes undue pretensions to wisdom; a would-be-wise person; hence, in contempt, a simpleton; a dunce.