pretension

Except his mild little wife there was not a thing with any pretensions to attractiveness about this household.

Edith Wilson was by no means the benign figure of her pretensions; the president far less than the hero of his aspirations.

Leaving aside deliberate pretensions, a person tends to project the same personality through all means of communication.

Instead, the government looks unlikely either to surrender any of Britain's global pretensions or to be willing to pay for them.

A series of rotating coalitions, however, would not measure up to European pretensions to being taken seriously in near abroad.

Whatever his pretensions, Mr Lieberman is not ready to spearhead a revolt.

Trade up the Hudson river was controlled by an aristocratic elite with pretensions to secure a steamboat monopoly.

You know its pretensions. They give themselves the air of demigods .

Quite early in its career Buddhism came into conflict with the growing pretensions of the Brahmins.

During the period of her engagement a young lady even of the most slender pretensions counts upon more bouquets than at other times.

After that, perhaps, the pretensions of corporate America could never have had much hold on him.

It has no cut scenes, no back story, no pretensions.

In a country with massive energy needs, and pretensions to global-power status, that would be momentous.

To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions.

He has no pretensions to being an expert on the subject.

Most European nations are now embarking on budget cuts, further undermining pretensions to a separate European policy.

On the opposite side of the street was a restaurant of no great pretensions. It catered to large appetites and modest purses.

Without it there would be nothing left of its global pretensions.

The internationalist pretensions of Hagi's most famous son notwithstanding, the foreigners living there these days are few and far between.

Besides, despite academia's pretensions to objectivity, it is as subject to political considerations as any area of human endeavour.

Japan was a commercial power without imperial pretensions; China is both.

He let slip that he wanted to be the "vicar" of foreign policy, a word with pope-size pretensions.

But they are increasingly open in challenging the G20's pretensions to be a "steering committee for the world" .

The Muslim Brotherhood, milder than the Salafists but with pretensions to represent orthodoxy, has itself spun off new political trends.

Hitherto, the rulers of emerging countries disliked the west's pretensions, but respected its competence.

But despite pretensions to latter-day phrenology, they remain an abstraction, an imperfect bridge from brain to mind.

They fear exposure of their weaknesses and hide beneath layers of protective pride and pretensions.

it was a gratuitous, that is, an artistic activity, though with few pretensions to being an art.

His pretensions to judge upon such matters filled her with scorn.

It should not be enforced in any country with democratic pretensions.

what pretensions have we, upon your suppositions, to ascribe that attribute to the divine Being?

China's experience with Japan, another neighbour with global pretensions, showed that all too clearly.

The cats must unsheath their claws and lacerate the kings, ripping away their regal pretensions.

For the Chinese, eating goes beyond the pure necessity of nourishment, and has little in common with our gourmet pretensions.

My literary pretensions made C splutter with laughter, but poetry weaves a potent spell.

France, of course, will never surrender its global pretensions.

This is no longer a world. It is simply a battlefield with pretensions of something more.

Despite its green pretensions, Stuttgart 21 will not move traffic from road to rail, says Gerhard Pfeifer of BUND, a pressure group.

It's word play and image play, wakeful dreams--made the same way as sleep dreams. It's lies and pretensions.

Such events have fed the view that the government's ethical pretensions have never amounted to much and were naive to begin with.

Pretensions that will never be realized.

I make no pretensions to skill as an artist.

And MaSuKui ZhongLv pretensions to prince washing, especially avoid treasure.

To give up pretensions is as blessed a ~ as to get them ratified.

It is also because the UK's pretensions to great power status will become ever more absurd as the populous emerging countries rise.

This kind of obscurity is not only pretensions; it is short-sighted.

It is easy to mock the pretensions of the authorities in Brussels.

A home is just a house with pretensions.

And it's time to puncture their pretensions.

The first, which was taken forward by Minsky, is that we should not take the pretensions of financiers seriously.

Moreover, he made no pretensions to botany; he ignored groups and consistency;

Whereupon his admirers were still more elated and exhorted him not to lower his pretensions for any man

The nation pulsed with music and proclamation, with rages and moral pretensions

and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others;