Roget's Thesaurus

#855. Affectation

Nouns

affectation; affectedness etc. adj.; acting a part etc. v.; pretense etc. (falsehood) 544, (ostentation) 882; boasting etc. 884. charlatanism, quackery, shallow profundity; pretension, airs, pedantry, purism, precisianism, euphuism; teratology etc. (altiloquence) 577. mannerism, simagree, grimace. conceit, foppery, dandyism, man millinery, coxcombry, puppyism. stiffness, formality, buckram; prudery, demureness, coquetry, mock modesty, minauderie, sentimentalism; mauvais honte, false shame. affector, performer, actor; pedant, pedagogue, doctrinaire, purist, euphuist, mannerist; grimacier; lump of affectation, precieuse ridicule [Fr.], bas bleu [Fr.], blue stocking, poetaster; prig; charlatan etc. (deceiver) 548; petit maitre etc. (fop) 854; flatterer etc. 935; coquette, prude, puritan.

Verbs

affect, act a part, put on; give oneself airs etc. (arrogance) 885; boast etc. 884; coquet; simper, mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan; overact, overdo.

Adjectives

affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted, stagy, theatrical, big-sounding, ad captandum; canting, insincere. not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial; overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist etc. 577. stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles, quakerish, puritanical, prudish, pragmatical, priggish, conceited, coxcomical, foppish, dandified; finical, finikin; mincing, simpering, namby-pamby, sentimental.

Phrases

conceit in weakest bodies strongest works [Hamlet].