Search the Dictionary

In an affected manner; hypocritically; with more show than reality.

Having an affected manner; being in the habit of putting on airs; affectedly grand. [Colloq.]

In an artless manner; without art, skill, or guile; unaffectedly. Pope.

Speaking in a whining tone of voice; using technical or religious terms affectedly; affectedly pious; as, a canting rogue; a canting tone. - Cant"ing*ly, adv. -- Cant"ing*ness, n. Canting arms, Canting heraldry (Her.), bearings in the nature of a rebus alluding to the name of the bearer. Thus, the Castletons bear thre…

Affectedly modest, decorous, or serious; making a show of gravity. A cat lay, and looked so demure, as if there had been neither life nor soul in her. L'Estrange. Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish, as if ten winters more had gone over her head. Miss Mitford.

One who writes in an affectedly pointed style. Epigrammatizers of our English prose style. Coleridge.

Belonging to the euphuists, or euphuism; affectedly refined.

Affectedly fine; overnice; unduly particular; fastidious. "Finical taste." Wordsworth. The gross style consists in giving no detail, the finical in giving nothing else. Hazlitt.

To speak affectedly. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

Affectedly pensive; languidly sentimental. -- Lack`a*dai"si*cal*ly, adv.

Using soft words; plausible; affectedly or timidly delicate of speech; unwilling to tell the truth in plain language. "Mealy-mouthed philanthropies." Tennyson. She was a fool to be mealy-mouthed where nature speaks so plain. L'Estrange. -- Meal"y-mouth`ness, n.

To utter with a voice affectedly big or swelling; to speak in a strained or unnaturally sonorous manner. "Mouthing big phrases." Hare. Mouthing out his hollow oes and aes. Tennyson.

Talk or writing which is weakly sentimental or affectedly pretty. Macaulay.

Too wise; affectedly wise. -- O`ver*wise"ly, adv. -- O`ver*wise"ness, n.

Of or pertaining to the Pietists; hence, in contempt, affectedly or demonstratively religious. Addison.

Affectedly nice; foppish; -- used in an ill sense. The pretty gentleman is the most complaisant in the world. Spectator.

Formal; precise; affectedly neat or nice; as, prim regularity; a prim person. Swift.

Like a prude; very formal, precise, or reserved; affectedly severe in virtue; as, a prudish woman; prudish manners. A formal lecture, spoke with prudish face. Garrick.

Rigid purity; the quality of being affectedly pure or nice, especially in the choice of language; over-solicitude as to purity. "His political purism." De Quincey. The English language, however, . . . had even already become too thoroughly and essentially a mixed tongue for his doctrine of purism to be admitted to the…

Having the odor of rose water; hence, affectedly nice or delicate; sentimental. "Rose-water philantropy." Carlyle.