Pre·tend·ed, a. Making a false appearance; unreal; false; as, pretended friend. -- Pre*tend*ed*ly, adv.
◄ ►
Pre·tend v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pretended; p. pr. & vb. n. Pretending.]
1. To lay a claim to; to allege a title to; to claim.
Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend. --Dryden.
2. To hold before, or put forward, as a cloak or disguise for something else; to exhibit as a veil for something hidden. [R.]
Lest that too heavenly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them. --Milton.
3. To hold out, or represent, falsely; to put forward, or offer, as true or real (something untrue or unreal); to show hypocritically, or for the purpose of deceiving; to simulate; to feign; as, to pretend friendship.
This let him know,
Lest, willfully transgressing, he pretend
Surprisal. --Milton.
4. To intend; to design; to plot; to attempt. [Obs.]
Such as shall pretend
Malicious practices against his state. --Shak.
5. To hold before one; to extend. [Obs.] “His target always over her pretended.”
pretended
adj : adopted in order to deceive; "an assumed name"; "an assumed
cheerfulness"; "a fictitious address"; "fictive
sympathy"; "a pretended interest"; "a put-on childish
voice"; "sham modesty" [syn: assumed, false, fictitious,
fictive, put on, sham]