AFFECTATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does affectation mean? 

• AFFECTATION (noun)
  The noun AFFECTATION has 1 sense:

1. a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display

  Familiarity information: AFFECTATION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AFFECTATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A deliberate pretense or exaggerated display

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

affectation; affectedness; mannerism; pose

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)

 Context examples 

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

"What affectation of diffidence was this at first?" they might have demanded; "what stupid regardlessness now?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He tried to resume his former easy, indifferent air, but it was an affectation now, for the rousing had been more effacious than he would confess.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his case.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking her strips of toast in it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He praised her for being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous, feelings.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I suspect, said Elinor, that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.

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

His manner was languid, his voice drawling, and while he eclipsed my uncle in the extravagance of his speech, he had not the air of manliness and decision which underlay all my kinsman’s affectations.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)