AIRS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does airs mean? 

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

1. affected manners intended to impress others

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• AIRS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Affected manners intended to impress others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

airs; pose

Context example:

don't put on airs with me

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

affectedness (the quality of being false or artificial (as to impress others))

 Context examples 

Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the north-eastward, from which direction the great trade-wind must blow.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"She is putting on airs already," said Laurie, who regarded the idea in the light of a capital joke.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"It's not for a deck-swab like him to put on airs," Mr. Higginbotham snorted.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Quiet, little one, or you may do yourself a hurt. Must pay Saxon toll on Saxon land, my proud Maude, for all your airs and graces.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I have seen done.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs, and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Oh! They give themselves such airs.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)