Synonyms for pretentious

Synonyms for (adj) pretentious

Synonyms: pretentious, ostentatious

Definition: intended to attract notice and impress others

Usage: an ostentatious sable coat

Similar words: flaunty

Definition: inclined to flaunt


Similar words: flamboyant, splashy, showy

Definition: marked by ostentation but often tasteless

Usage: a cheap showy rhinestone bracelet; a splashy half-page ad


Synonyms: pretentious

Definition: making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction

Usage: a pretentious country house; a pretentious fraud; a pretentious scholarly edition

Similar words: arty

Definition: showily imitative of art or artists


Similar words: artsy-craftsy, arty-crafty

Definition: pretentiously artistic; cloyingly charming


Similar words: overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous, grandiloquent

Definition: puffed up with vanity

Usage: a grandiloquent and boastful manner; overblown oratory; a pompous speech; pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey- Newsweek


Similar words: grandiose, hoity-toity, hifalutin, highfalutin, highfaluting, la-di-da

Definition: affectedly genteel


Similar words: high-flown, high-sounding, inflated

Definition: pretentious (especially with regard to language or ideals)

Usage: high-flown talk of preserving the moral tone of the school; a high-sounding dissertation on the means to attain social revolution


Similar words: jumped-up

Definition: (British informal) upstart


Similar words: upstart, parvenu, parvenue, nouveau-riche

Definition: characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position


Similar words: sententious

Definition: abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing

Usage: too often the significant episode deteriorates into sententious conversation- Kathleen Barnes


Similar words: sesquipedalian

Definition: given to the overuse of long words

Usage: sesquipedalian orators; this sesquipedalian way of saying one has no money


Synonyms: ostentatious, pretentious

Definition: (of a display) tawdry or vulgar

Similar words: tasteless

Definition: lacking aesthetic or social taste


Visual thesaurus for pretentious