as in pretense
a display of emotion or behavior that is insincere or intended to deceive
it was clear to her friends that her reaction to the news was pure playacting
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Recent Examples of playacting
Emily Zarevich, JSTOR Daily, 11 Sep. 2025
Noun
Hence the infamous playacting subplot in her 1814 novel Mansfield Park, a novel written when Austen was at her professional peak.
—Emily Zarevich, JSTOR Daily, 11 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for playacting
Noun
-
The case also ties to an earlier incident on March 24, when police say Alexander approached a woman under the pretense of asking for directions while engaging in indecent behavior.—
Sergio Candido,
CBS News,
5 Apr. 2026
-
Maybe the pretense was comforting to him, too.—
Cassandra Neyenesch,
New Yorker,
29 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
Swift's first time at the awards show in three years was a celebratory one.—
Michelle Lee,
PEOPLE,
10 Apr. 2026
-
Hungarians living near the southern frontier, where Orbán made a show of building a border fence during the refugee crisis, are travelling to Croatia to buy cheap groceries.—
Kapil Komireddi,
New Yorker,
10 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
In the accompanying photo, Fleetwood and his new bride, Elizabeth Jordan lean into one another, cheekily posing behind Fleetwood's upheld fedora.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Apr. 2026
-
The rice may contain foreign material, posing a safety hazard.—
Jenna Anderson,
Health,
10 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
The facades are replicas made to scale, one-third the size of the original buildings.—
Olivia Young,
CBS News,
8 Apr. 2026
-
As the façade of privilege begins to crack, the film charts an unsettling psychological terrain.—
Melanie Goodfellow,
Deadline,
8 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
After the shot missed wildly, mascots rushed the floor pretending the deep 3-pointer went through the net.—
Bennett Conlin,
Baltimore Sun,
2 Apr. 2026
-
Dayle’s satirical novel follows a white flag-bearer pretending to be a Black soldier during the Civil War.—
Mike Danahey,
Chicago Tribune,
2 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The long-running series is enjoying its latest act on Netflix after previously airing on Fox and USA, tantalizing viewers by thrusting four couples due for a reckoning into an exotic locale overflowing with sultry singles whose only goal is to flirt.—
Randall Colburn,
Entertainment Weekly,
11 Apr. 2026
-
For those who know the play well, some of Mantello’s choices are most striking, especially the horror here of the famous hotel-room scene with a tawdry lover (brutally played by Katherine Romans), an act born of loneliness that destroys a father’s relationship with his son forever.—
Chris Jones,
New York Daily News,
10 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
The moon, rather than Earth, was the main gravitational force acting on the Orion spacecraft.—
Kaia Hubbard,
CBS News,
6 Apr. 2026
-
The following month, a hit squad, reportedly acting on bin Salman’s orders, strangled Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist who had been critical of the regime, and used a bone saw to dismember his corpse.—
Ronan Farrow,
New Yorker,
6 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Then, in the late nineteenth century, the mandolin experienced a second flowering, albeit in a different guise.—
Tim Parks,
New Yorker,
11 Apr. 2026
-
Under some guise of urgency—an unpaid fine or other transgression—the victim would be directed to download an app that closely mimics the institution’s real one.—
Charlie Campbell,
Time,
7 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Playacting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/playacting. Accessed 13 Apr. 2026.
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