1. Making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction
   "a pretentious scholarly edition"; "a pretentious country house"; "a pretentious fraud"
    
2. Intended to attract notice and impress others
   "Her pretentious manner of speaking annoyed her colleagues";
   - ostentatious, posey [Brit, informal]
    
3. (of a display) tawdry or vulgar
   "The tourist shop was full of pretentious souvenirs";
   - ostentatious, kitsch [informal], kitschy [informal]

See also: artsy [N. Amer, informal], artsy-craftsy [informal], arty [informal], arty-crafty [informal], flamboyant, flaunty [informal], grandiloquent, grandiose, hifalutin [informal], highfalutin [informal], highfaluting [informal], high-flown, high-sounding, hoity-toity [informal], inflated, jumped-up [Brit, informal], la-de-da [informal], la-di-da [informal], lah-di-dah [informal], nouveau-riche, overblown, parvenu, parvenue, pompous, pontifical, portentous, sententious, sesquipedalian, showy, splashy, tasteless, upstart

Antonym: unpretentious

Encyclopedia: Pretentious