How to Use pretend in a Sentence

pretend

1 of 2 verb

• He pretended to make a phone call.
• The children pretended to be asleep.
• It was a mistake, and to pretend otherwise would be foolish.
• She looked like she was enjoying the party but she was just pretending.
• The children were pretending to be animals.
• He had a big stain on his shirt, but I pretended not to notice.
• Let's just pretend for a moment. I'm your boss. What would you say to me?
• In the first photo, a young Robert sits on his dad's lap and pretends to drive the old pick up truck.
  — Tracey Harrington McCoy, Peoplemag, 19 Apr. 2023
• A lot of people forget or pretend that MTV fell off in the ’90s.
  — Chris Payne, Vulture, 30 May 2023
• To pretend otherwise in the year 2024 is all-but to out oneself as a hireling.
  — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 12 Feb. 2024
• And the Ginza, too, faked its whereabouts last fall, pretending to be off the coast of Oman.
  — David Botti, New York Times, 30 May 2023
• Lady went to the kitchen table and pretended to eat a sand- wich.
  — Hazlitt, 14 June 2023
• The film revolves around a non-couple who have to pretend to be a couple?
  — Emma Specter, Vogue, 20 Oct. 2023
• The buoy, looking to connect with anything, pretends to be one so the satellite will stop and talk to it.
  — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 20 Jan. 2024
• Others want to take an adorable paw or floppy ear and pretend to eat it.
  — Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 21 Feb. 2024
• In his throwback post, Pauly D pretended to take a bite out of Polizzi’s arm.
  — Zoey Lyttle, Peoplemag, 23 Nov. 2023
• What Mercy is meant to do about it, Expats does not pretend to know.
  — Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Jan. 2024
• Instead of popping to his feet, Curry laid in the key and pretended to snooze.
  — Connor Letourneau, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 May 2023
• Don't go into gory detail, but don't pretend your child isn't aware that something's amiss in the world.
  — Lisa Milbrand, Parents, 26 Oct. 2023
• The media and people like me are just pretending there's a race going.
  — Soo Rin Kim, ABC News, 27 Nov. 2023
• Boring doesn’t sell, and the Yankees cannot even pretend to be pushing for a pennant.
  — Tyler Kepner, New York Times, 20 Aug. 2023
• Gomez — dressed in a chic white shirt and jeans — pretended to take a bite of the buttery treat, while Gracie looked less impressed.
  — Jenny Haward, Peoplemag, 23 June 2023
• James was sitting in a room for nine hours having to pretend to be reading a script, that is rare and that is special.
  — Charna Flam, Variety, 5 May 2023
• Wow, this woman straight-up pretends not to know her own granddaughter to save face.
  — Emma Specter, Vogue, 22 June 2023
• In the photos, Megan pretended to read a book and also posed in a doorway, all while her glass was firmly in hand.
  — Kirsty Hatcher, Peoplemag, 2 Oct. 2023
• In the home movie that still is pulled from, Bradford pretended to die after being shot.
  — Ismail Muhammad, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2023
• In short, no—including pretending to move to the Middle East.
  — Radhika Seth, Vogue, 1 Nov. 2023
• Now neither party wants a referee calling balls and strikes, or even to pretend that's the goal.
  — Nbc Universal, NBC News, 28 May 2023
• Hendry said the strategy of extending and pretending might be the wrong medicine for the current moment.
  — Rachel Siegel, Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2024
• In some cases, the scammers have even called individuals and pretended to be Apple Support.
  — Jody Serrano / Gizmodo, Quartz, 27 Mar. 2024

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pretend

2 of 2 adjective

• The children played on a pretend train.
• That is the game, that all these things are fake, this is all pretend.
  — The New Yorker, 29 May 2022
• It’s got a little sink and a pretend stove with pots and pans.
  — Amy Dickinson, Washington Post, 4 Dec. 2023
• In a movie version, the third-act reveal might be that your spouse, too, has a pretend job.
  — Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2023
• His mom even saved the picture from our pretend wedding.
  — cleveland, 14 May 2022
• On this pretend trip-to-nowhere, maybe the 49ers could pick up a few healthy bodies to complete the fantasy.
  — Ann Killion, SFChronicle.com, 11 Oct. 2020
• The pretend band is what blew up and got him notoriety.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 19 Nov. 2023
• The owners bribed people with HIV to serve as pretend patients.
  — Jessica Wapner, Scientific American, 15 Aug. 2023
• This is a pretty standard pick and roll, with a pretend screen from Rudy Gay at the beginning.
  — The Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Dec. 2022
• Nick and Norah meet by chance at a club when Norah asks Nick to be her pretend boyfriend for five minutes.
  — Leah Campano, Seventeen, 14 Dec. 2022
• Milo passes through the tollbooth in his small pretend car and finds himself in the Lands Beyond.
  — Emily Langer, Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2021
• Using small fire hoses, children spray water on a fake fire to knock down pretend flames.
  — John Benson, cleveland, 7 Aug. 2023
• In a world so full of real horrors, the pretend ones offer escape and catharsis.
  — Usa Today Staff, USA TODAY, 27 Sep. 2021
• Prank-O has the Snack Hat, a pretend magnetic plate that lets kids eat while sitting on their dad’s shoulders.
  — oregonlive, 7 June 2020
• Gather up toy shopping carts and cash registers, and let the kids turn the pantry, fridge and kitchen into a pretend grocery store.
  — Amy Schwabe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 May 2021
• Wooden cars and a train with working wheels are also provided to be able to get around their pretend city.
  — Ysolt Usigan, Woman's Day, 18 Aug. 2022
• Inside the playhouse is a pretend kitchen that comes complete with a cordless phone, two pans, and a spatula.
  — Ashley Ziegler, Parents, 16 Oct. 2023
• The lagoon is indoors, edged with shells, rocks, little pools, palm trees and even its own pretend beach, set in a vaulted room three stories high.
  — Judy Rose, Detroit Free Press, 15 Aug. 2021
• The Law and Order franchise has been a guest-star pipeline of pretend offenders, victims and lawyers from off-Broadway and on for decades.
  — Washington Post, 2 Feb. 2022
• From a pretend cruise at sea to music video-style pool parties, this isn't your average seniors' home.
  — Zulekha Nathoo, USA TODAY, 15 July 2022
• On the day of the pretend trip, White’s classroom transformed into an airplane, ready to welcome its young passengers.
  — Jenna Wang, Peoplemag, 22 Nov. 2023
• An hour later, Stonestreet stole his pretend husband's thunder and posted the same photo on his own feed — but with a few tweaks.
  — Andrea Towers, EW.com, 6 Jan. 2022
• At the center of the story is Arjie, a boy from a well-off Tamil family who would rather dress up as a bride for pretend weddings with the girls than play cricket with the boys.
  — Los Angeles Times, 10 Dec. 2020
• The jig was up at the pretend quarterfinal stage when the police cracked down and arrested four persons involved with it.
  — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 11 July 2022
• After watching bakers twist dough in the classic shape, kids can try their hands at it using a pretend dough mixture.
  — Karen Cicero, Good Housekeeping, 20 Apr. 2022
• Your boyfriend, on the other hand, would like to create a narrative that’s a fiction, a pretend version of you, edited for his comfort.
  — Lori Gottlieb, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2020
• How could these missionaries not know: there is no foreign song in a pretend foreign song.
  — Jordan Castro, Harper's Magazine, 5 Jan. 2024
• Previous crafts included a pretend play pie, a pine cone turkey and a winter snow globe.
  — Carol Kovach, cleveland, 9 Dec. 2020
• Everyone assumed that people would have some fun playing around with a pretend currency for a year or two and then move on.
  — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, 8 Jan. 2018
• Here, roomy standing baskets (painted a stylish copper) function as a display for the pretend food used in the adorable play kitchen by Hello Baby Brown.
  — Sienna Livermore, House Beautiful, 31 May 2022

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024