affectation

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: af=fec=ta=tion

CIDE DICTIONARY

affectation, n. [L. affectatio: cf. F. affectation.].

•  An attempt to assume or exhibit what is not natural or real; false display; artificial show.  Macaulay.  [1913 Webster]

  "Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural what is natural."  [1913 Webster]
•  A striving after.  Bp. Pearson.  [1913 Webster]
•  Fondness; affection.  Hooker.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

affectation, n.
1 an assumed or contrived manner of behaviour, esp. in order to impress.
2 (foll. by of) a studied display.
3 pretence.

Etymology

F affectation or L affectatio (as AFFECT(2))

THESAURUS

affectation

Barnumism, Gongorism, act, acting, action, actions, activity, acts, address, affectedness, air, airs, appearance, artfulness, artifice, artificiality, attitudinizing, bearing, bedizenment, behavior, behavior pattern, behavioral norm, behavioral science, big talk, bluff, bluffing, carriage, cheating, color, coloring, command of language, comportment, conduct, convolution, culture pattern, custom, deception, delusion, demeanor, deportment, disguise, dissemblance, dissembling, dissimulation, doing, doings, euphemism, euphuism, exaggeration, expression of ideas, facade, face, fakery, faking, false air, false front, false show, falsity, fashion, feeling for words, feigning, feint, flashiness, flatulence, flatulency, folkway, form of speech, four-flushing, fraud, front, fulsomeness, garishness, gaudiness, gestures, gilt, gloss, goings-on, grace of expression, grandiloquence, grandioseness, grandiosity, guise, high-flown diction, humbug, humbuggery, hyperelegance, imposture, inflatedness, inflation, insincerity, lexiphanicism, literary style, loftiness, lugs, luridness, magniloquence, maintien, manner, manner of speaking, manneredness, mannerism, manners, masquerade, mere rhetoric, meretriciousness, method, methodology, methods, mien, mode, mode of expression, modus vivendi, motions, movements, moves, observable behavior, orotundity, ostentation, ostentatious complexity, outward show, overelaboration, overelegance, overniceness, overrefinement, pattern, peculiarity, personal style, platitudinous ponderosity, playacting, poise, polysyllabic profundity, pomposity, pompous prolixity, pompousness, pontification, port, pose, posing, posture, posturing, practice, praxis, preciosity, preciousness, presence, pretense, pretension, pretentiousness, pretext, procedure, proceeding, prose run mad, purism, representation, rhetoric, rhetoricalness, seeming, semblance, sensationalism, sense of language, sententiousness, sham, show, showiness, simulacrum, simulation, social science, speciousness, stiltedness, strain, style, stylistic analysis, stylistics, swelling utterance, swollen phrase, swollenness, tactics, tall talk, the grand style, the plain style, the sublime, tone, tortuosity, tortuousness, trick, tumidity, tumidness, turgescence, turgidity, unnaturalness, varnish, vein, way, way of life, ways, window dressing

ROGET THESAURUS

affectation

Affectation

N affectation, affectedness, acting a part, pretense boasting, charlatanism, quackery, shallow profundity, pretension, airs, pedantry, purism, precisianism, euphuism, teratology, 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, bas bleu, blue stocking, poetaster, prig, charlatan, petit maitre, flatterer, coquette, prude, puritan, 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, 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, conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.