Dictionary

unpretended en · ADJ

Etymology

From un- + pretended.

Meanings

1. Without pretense; sincere; honest.
   • She looked up at Cliff, her face filled with unpretended pleasure. 1988, Barbara Brett, Sizzle, page 347:
   • Children do not expect to be praized. They would never relax their effort for production. Theirs is a free and unpretended self-expression. 1960, Tsugio Ajisaka, Education by Dr. Obara, page 156:
   • And she did this with a sincere, unpretended love. 2009, Merienne Lynch, Knowing the Terror of the Lord, page 98:
2. Based in fact; genuine; actual.
   • But it is not feigned on a tabula rasa, as if at random: rather, the declaration of immediate intention appears to be formed in the way a decision is formed, constrained by the (pretended) "fact” that there is the sound of footsteps from the basement, the (un'''pretended) fact that such a sound would now be unlikely if therre weren't an intruder in the basement, the (un'''pretended) awfulness of there being an intruder in the basement, and so forth. 1994, George Graham, G. Lynn Stephens, Philosophical Psychopathology, page 172:
   • We shall go forth tonight by the heavy coach —like the dove of old, my dear Martin — and it will be a week before we again deposit our olive-branches in the passage. When I say 'olive-branches,' observed Mr. Pecksniff, in explanation, 'I mean our unpretended luggage.' 1998, Norrie Epstein, The Friendly Dickens:
   • First, is it likely that during this unpretended danger we should obtain a settlement of the power of the Kingddme, princip liy of the Ships, Forts and Armes in the hands of them who are knowne friends ofpublique safety or Liberty, taking it granted that we could finde them. 1643, Edward Bowles, John Squire, Henry Hare, Plaine English:
3. Without complication or embellishment; straightforward; simple and direct.
   • The front side of the porticoes is shaded by a double-curved eave-cornice of unpretended beauty. 1982, Harihar Singh, Jaina Temples of Western India, page 230:
   • Ilse Aichinger is a master of the “unpretended language.” Her works are marked by their unobtrusiveness and clarity. 2013, Katharina M. Wilson, Paul Schlueter, June Schlueter, Women Writers of Great Britain and Europe: An Encyclopedia:
   • How pleasant the little unpretended gatherings of book-societies, and the like; or those purely accidental meetings of a few people well known to each other!. 2015, Herbert Spencer, Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects:

Forms