She felt their downdraft, but knew it was not enough; her effort at flight was mere pretense.

Or like a shell, paper-thin, the mere pretense of a man.

It was all only the mere pretense of a city, he thought dismally.

Of course, the platform was mere pretense - "dialectics," as the Communists would call it.

They could not be certain, either, that those denials were not mere pretense on his part.

Religious motivations in secular affairs, he said, "were disregarded or dismissed as mere pretense."

I had no way to bring him here; such was mere pretense on my part.

In other cases, the association is mere pretense.

The Shadow's unusual encounter with the law had been a mere pretense of battle.

Danzig was a mere pretense, as the Fuehrer had told his generals.