To deal seriously were to yield too much respect to such a baffler, and too much weight to his fancies; to raise the man too high in his courage and conceit; to make his pretences seem worthy the considering and canvassing.
He feigns that he can bring down sparrows, and unburrow rats (he can do neither), and he takes the boys out on sporting pretencesinto all sorts of suburban fields.
The devices and pretences that I have seen put in practice to defer the fatal moment, and to interpose between this man and his purpose, are innumerable.
Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretencesso likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men as of the people at large.
I will not yield to these false pretences of humanity and melioration which will only deprive us of privateers, and leave our commerce exposed to your immense navies.
Kloster says they're anachronisms, that the world is too old for them, too grown-up for pretences and decorations.
Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretences of excusing any from labour.
Have nothing to do with shifts andpretences and false devices; be candid and open, and commit all to God.
By permitting his feelings of security to increase, by different pretences of agreement and flattery, Silvanus, it was thought, might be relieved from all fear of hostility, and so be the more easily deceived.
As for the matter of religion, to which he adverted, it would require a separate volume, were I to set down how irreligiously they cover their greedy and ambitious pretences with that veil of pretended piety.
Upon this book have inquisitors, crusaders, and religious men, founded pretences for the most diabolical persecutions, avowedly undertaken for the express purpose of unrooting infidelity, and for the glory of the Lord.
Whoever, therefore, is destitute of this love, must of necessity prove a hypocrite amidst all his pretences and boasts.
Where these are wanting, there Christ himself is wanting, together with the whole extent of his merits and satisfaction, be the pretences of the false Christian ever so fair and specious.
Such is the condition of most men at this day, that those who make the strongest pretences to the Christian name, do nothing but that which is contrary to the Christian spirit.
For, in truth, all those that live in the darkness of sin, have no fellowship with Christ, be their pretences what they will.
Will you believe, then, Mr. Rolfe, that I am quite in earnest in hating show and pretences and extravagance, and wishing to live in just the opposite way?
Alma, who had felt uncertain how this interview would begin, was glad that she had to meet no pretences of friendship.
They will urge a thousand pretences to answer their purposes on both sides.
A distinction between peace and war would be idle indeed, if it can be frittered away by such pretences as those.
But let the best informed historian produce an instance when bodies of men were entrusted with power, and the proper checks relinquished, if they were ever found destitute of ingenuity sufficient to furnish pretences to abuse it.
It is not always the authors, on the other hand, whose pretences it is the work of criticism to destroy.
It is the false pretences in literature which criticism must seek to destroy.
Also of the discomfiture of pious old husbands and the wicked triumph of rompish little ladies, under pretences of outraged innocence.
Perhaps it is a sufficiently clear exposition of the way these rascals proceeded, to make it evident that there is no trusting the pretences of any of them.
When he comes before Aeacus, this Judge is very rough with him; and tries his pretences to a Deity by Bastinado: Bacchus howls in the drubbing and had almost spoil'd all.
It seems the Birds had very good Pretences to execute this project; for they were ancienter than Jupiter and Saturn, and Govern'd before the Gods.
Are we indeed willing to quit the Privilege of our Nature; to surrender our Charter of Immortality, and throw up the Pretences to another Life?
Or were Their pretences to Sobriety elsewhere nothing but Hypocrisy and Grimace?
Is it not to give Credit and Countenance to Vice, and to shame young People out of all pretences to Conscience, and Regularity?
And is it not now possess'd of as fair pretences as formerly?
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "pretences" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
