&c v.; pretense &c (falsehood) 544, (ostentation) 882; boasting &c 884.
charlatanism, quackery, shallow profundity; pretension, airs,
pedantry, purism, precisianism, euphuism; teratology &c (altiloquence)
577.
mannerism, simagree, grimace.
conceit, foppery, dandyism, man millinery, coxcombry, puppyism.
stiffness, formality, buckram; prudery, demureness, coquetry, mock
modesty, minauderie, sentimentalism; mauvais honte, false shame.
affector, performer, actor; pedant, pedagogue, doctrinaire,
purist, euphuist, mannerist; grimacier; lump of affectation, precieuse
ridicule [Fr.], bas bleu [Fr.], blue stocking, poetaster; prig;
charlatan &c (deceiver) 548; petit maitre &c (fop) 854; flatterer &c
935; coquette, prude, puritan.
V. affect, act a part, put on; give oneself airs &c (arrogance) 885;
boast &c 884; coquet; simper, mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan;
overact, overdo.
Adj. affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted,
stagy, theatrical, big-sounding, ad captandum; canting, insincere.
not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial;
overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist &c 577.
stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles,
quakerish, puritanical, prudish, pragmatical, priggish, conceited,
coxcomical, foppish, dandified; finical, finikin; mincing, simpering,
namby-pamby, sentimental.
Phr. conceit in weakest bodies strongest works [Hamlet].