"pretences" in the noun sense
1. pretension, pretense, pretence
a false or unsupportable quality
2. guise, pretense, pretence, pretext
an artful or simulated semblance
"under the guise of friendship he betrayed them"
3. pretense, pretence, feigning, dissembling
pretending with intention to deceive
4. pretense, pretence, make-believe
imaginative intellectual play
5. pretense, pretence, pretending, simulation, feigning
the act of giving a false appearance
"his conformity was only pretending"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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