From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpretentiouspre‧ten‧tious /prɪˈtenʃəs/ ●○○ adjective SHOW OFFif someone or something is pretentious, they try to seem more important, intelligent, or high class than they really are in order to be impressive OPP unpretentious a pretentious film —pretentiously adverb —pretentiousness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
pretentious• I found Susie unbearably pretentious.• Although the decor may be quite formal, there is nothing pretentious about the food, which is down-home wonderful.• So Princeton looked good for college until I met their pretentious admissions rep.• The restaurant is stuffy, pretentious, and ridiculously expensive.• He complained that my titles were vague and pretentious, and smelt of the blue-stocking.• He might be pretentious in other ways, but he was not posing at the keyboard.• a pretentious movie• Bangers and mash is better than pretentious nouvellecuisine, though you can probably be a little more original!• He has a pretentious style of writing, using four very difficult words where one simple one would do.• It may seem pretentious to say so but it is intended in Gramsci's terms as an organic intellectual work. 