AFFECTATION

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A deliberate pretense or exaggerated display

Synonyms:

affectation; affectedness; mannerism; pose

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("affectation" is a kind of...):

feigning; pretence; pretending; pretense; simulation (the act of giving a false appearance)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "affectation"):

attitude (a theatrical pose created for effect)

radical chic (an affectation of radical left-wing views and the fashionable dress and lifestyle that goes with them)

Credits

Context examples:

In addition to what has been already said of Catherine Morland's personal and mental endowments, when about to be launched into all the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath, it may be stated, for the reader's more certain information, lest the following pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what her character is meant to be, that her heart was affectionate; her disposition cheerful and open, without conceit or affectation of any kind—her manners just removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl; her person pleasing, and, when in good looks, pretty—and her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

"What will we buy?" asked Jo, ignoring the latter part of his speech, and sniffing the mingled odors with an affectation of delight as they went in.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

But he, the honest seaman, so incapable of deceit or affectation that he could not suspect it in others, ran madly to the bell, shouting for the maid, the doctor, and the smelling-salts, with incoherent words of grief, and such passionate terms of emotion that my father thought it more discreet to twitch me by the sleeve as a signal that we should steal from the room.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He took up all my clothes in his pastern, one piece after another, and examined them diligently; he then stroked my body very gently, and looked round me several times; after which, he said, it was plain I must be a perfect Yahoo; but that I differed very much from the rest of my species in the softness, whiteness, and smoothness of my skin; my want of hair in several parts of my body; the shape and shortness of my claws behind and before; and my affectation of walking continually on my two hinder feet.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very superior performance.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Your indifference is half affectation, and a good stirring up would prove it.