Pretentious means trying to seem more impressive, important, or knowledgeable than you really are. A pretentious person might use complicated words they don't fully understand just to sound smart, or name-drop famous people they barely know to seem important.

You might encounter pretentiousness at a science fair when someone uses tons of technical jargon to hide that their project is actually pretty simple. Or when a classmate who's read one chapter of a book starts lecturing everyone about it like they're an expert. Someone being pretentious about art might dismiss paintings others enjoy as “too unsophisticated,” using fancy criticism to make themselves feel superior.

There's a big difference between genuine confidence (earned through real knowledge or skill) and pretentiousness (faking it to impress others).

A pretentious restaurant might have an overly complicated menu with French words for simple dishes and charge high prices to seem fancy. Someone might call a movie pretentious if it seems to care more about appearing artistic and deep than about actually telling a good story.

The opposite of pretentiousness is authenticity: being genuinely yourself and letting your real accomplishments speak for themselves.