What's the difference between act and pretense?

Act


Definition:

  • (n.) That which is done or doing; the exercise of power, or the effect, of which power exerted is the cause; a performance; a deed.
  • (n.) The result of public deliberation; the decision or determination of a legislative body, council, court of justice, etc.; a decree, edit, law, judgment, resolve, award; as, an act of Parliament, or of Congress.
  • (n.) A formal solemn writing, expressing that something has been done.
  • (n.) A performance of part of a play; one of the principal divisions of a play or dramatic work in which a certain definite part of the action is completed.
  • (n.) A thesis maintained in public, in some English universities, by a candidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a student.
  • (n.) A state of reality or real existence as opposed to a possibility or possible existence.
  • (n.) Process of doing; action. In act, in the very doing; on the point of (doing).
  • (v. t.) To move to action; to actuate; to animate.
  • (v. t.) To perform; to execute; to do.
  • (v. t.) To perform, as an actor; to represent dramatically on the stage.
  • (v. t.) To assume the office or character of; to play; to personate; as, to act the hero.
  • (v. t.) To feign or counterfeit; to simulate.
  • (v. i.) To exert power; to produce an effect; as, the stomach acts upon food.
  • (v. i.) To perform actions; to fulfill functions; to put forth energy; to move, as opposed to remaining at rest; to carry into effect a determination of the will.
  • (v. i.) To behave or conduct, as in morals, private duties, or public offices; to bear or deport one's self; as, we know not why he has acted so.
  • (v. i.) To perform on the stage; to represent a character.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The high amino acid levels in the cells suggest that these cells act as inter-organ transporters and reservoirs of amino acids, they have a different role in their handling and metabolism from those of mammals.
  • (2) Although Jeggo's Chinese hamster ovary cells were more responsive to mAMSA, novo still abrogated mAMSA toxicity in the mutant cells as well as in the parental Chinese hamster ovary cells 2,4-Dinitrophenol acted similarly to novo with respect to mAMSA killing, but neither compound reduced the ATP content of V79 cells.
  • (3) administration of the potent short-acting opioid, fentanyl, elicited inhibition of rhythmic spontaneous reflex increases in vesical pressure (VP) evoked by urinary bladder distension.
  • (4) Family therapists have attempted to convert the acting-out behavioral disorders into an effective state, i.e., make the family aware of their feelings of deprivation by focusing on the aggressive component.
  • (5) It is suggested that the rapid phase is due to clearance of peptides in the circulation which results in a fall to lower blood concentrations which are sustained by slow release of peptide from binding sites which act as a depot.
  • (6) Peptides from this region bind to actin, act as mixed inhibitors of the actin-stimulated S1 Mg2(+)-ATPase, and influence the contractile force developed in skinned fibres, whereas peptides flanking this sequence are without effect in our test systems.
  • (7) Comprehensive regulations are being developed to limit human exposure to contamination in drinking water by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
  • (8) Pedigree studies have suggested that there may be an inherited predisposition to many apparently nonfamilial colorectal cancers and a genetic model of tumorigenesis in common colorectal cancer has been proposed that includes the activation of dominantly acting oncogenes and the inactivation of growth suppressor genes.
  • (9) Propofol is ideal for short periods of care on the ICU, and during weaning when longer acting agents are being eliminated.
  • (10) We have investigated interactions between the erythroid transcription factor GATA-1 and factors binding two cis-acting elements commonly linked to GATA sites in erythroid control elements.
  • (11) These later results suggest that dopamine agonists increase sensorimotor reactivity measured with acoustic startle by acting on sensory rather than motor parts of the reflex arc.
  • (12) Dietary factors affect intestinal P450s markedly--iron restriction rapidly decreased intestinal P450 to beneath detectable values; selenium deficiency acted similarly but was less effective; Brussels sprouts increased intestinal AHH activity 9.8-fold, ECOD activity 3.2-fold, and P450 1.9-fold; fried meat and dietary fat significantly increased intestinal EROD activity; a vitamin A-deficient diet increased, and a vitamin A-rich diet decreased intestinal P450 activities; and excess cholesterol in the diet increased intestinal P450 activity.
  • (13) It was not clear whether Mn2+ acted at the presynaptic membrane, the postsynaptic membrane or both.
  • (14) She added: “We will continue to act upon the overwhelming majority view of our shareholders.” The vote was the second year running Ryanair had suffered a rebellion on pay.
  • (15) In this paper sensitive and selective bioassays are described for growth factors acting on substrate-attached cells, in particular members of the epidermal growth factor, transforming growth factor beta, platelet-derived growth factor, insulin-like growth factor, and heparin-binding growth factor families.
  • (16) Evidence is presented that the protein can act catalytically.
  • (17) It was concluded that Ta acts as a weak zeitgeber in laboratory rats and has greater effects on males compared to females.
  • (18) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (19) Tumorigenesis is a multistep process involving mutations of dominantly acting proto-oncogenes and mutations and loss-of-function mutations of tumor suppressor genes.
  • (20) In one of Pruitt’s first official acts, for example, he overruled the recommendation of his own agency’s scientists, based on years of meticulous research, to ban a pesticide shown to cause nerve damage, one that poses a clear risk to children, farmworkers and rural drinking water supplies.

Pretense


Definition:

  • (n.) Alt. of Pretence

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Should Britain start behaving like the small island state it is rather than maintaining the pretensions of being a significant world player?
  • (2) The most important determinants of the behavior which connect the organism with its informational environment are pretensions to space, time, metabolism and changing of form.
  • (3) He is wary of pretension, alive to all shades of irony.
  • (4) The peculiar skill of HTB has been to preserve the confidence of the public-school officer class that it had a duty to lead, but to drop the surrounding pretensions, the idea being that what remains is professionalism and commitment.
  • (5) Preliminary results suggest that the effect produced by the distraction of ring pairs on interfragmentary micromotion is as significant as pretensioning of the wires.
  • (6) Using a strain gauged pretension device, a procedure for determining the natural state tension and extension fields in the skin has been developed.
  • (7) He was a poet of modest pretensions and, although his translation of Julius Caesar was not brilliant, he did, after all, dare to translate Shakespeare.
  • (8) The track, shamelessly mocking the pretensions of people who falsely associate themselves with the fashions and styles of the sprauncy Gangnam district of Seoul – a kind of South Korean Beverly Hills – has been called a "force for world peace" by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon .
  • (9) Only one party with pretensions to government made the wrong choice; the Conservative Party of Britain.
  • (10) Leslie (1987b) proposed a new, metarepresentational model for the cognition of pretense.
  • (11) They were victims of a swatting attack, a malicious form of hoax where special weapons and tactics (Swat) teams are called to a victim’s home under false pretenses, with potentially deadly results.
  • (12) In fact, wet deposition has long been hailed as a possible solution by higher powers, with their lofty pretensions to control the elements.
  • (13) "I love the grunge, the lack of pretension and the simpler way of life," says the Manchester-born DJ and record producer, better known as A Guy Called Gerald, who helped to shape the acid house scene in the 1980s.
  • (14) Two explanations for this breakdown in the belief-desire reasoning subserving pretense are considered.
  • (15) To the extent they acknowledged any of this at all, their responses ranged from indulging patently absurd pretenses (this was just a polite request from the White House: what's wrong with that?)
  • (16) One need not be a supporter of China’s provocative and aggressive actions in the South China Sea to notice that the incident did not involve a Chinese nuclear-capable bomber in the Caribbean, or off the coast of California, where China has no pretensions of establishing a “Chinese lake”.
  • (17) This, too, is perpetual disaster capitalism, creating havoc and inflicting disaster upon individual souls for corporate greed without even needing the pretense of a crisis for an excuse.
  • (18) What I don’t like is the pretense and the assumption that someway or another Hackney needs to be grateful for all these up-and-coming industries.
  • (19) Clegg will insist that the Lib Dems have already replaced Labour as the country's leading "progressive" party and scoff at Tory pretensions to the same label.
  • (20) In the individual case with a provable causality of trauma on the acceleration of tumor progress a pretension for insurance es legal.