What's the difference between pretentious and swagger?

Pretentious


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of pretension; disposed to lay claim to more than is one's; presuming; assuming.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But BrewDog’s astonishing growth may raise the uncomfortable possibility that in an age of media-savvy and brand-sceptical digital natives, ostentatious displays of “authenticity” – known to some as acting like pretentious hipster douchebags – may have become a necessary condition for success.
  • (2) All seven did at least try to give this dire and pretentious concept some life.
  • (3) To acknowledge that it must have seemed pretentious to enjoy 'This Charming Man' when Duran Duran was playing on the radio.
  • (4) If you ever feel tempted to say "status quo" or "cul de sac", for instance, Orwell will sneer at you for "pretentious diction".
  • (5) In one of the most pretentious sections, in traffic accidents of the type pedestrian--car, they want to attempt an interdisciplinary study the purpose of which is to obtain certain basic data for expert evaluation of the mechanism of fatal injuries of pedestrians, and a basis for assessing speed limits at sites of increased danger of this type of accidents.
  • (6) In Manhattan, she is cast as a pretentious, irksome snob of a journalist.
  • (7) The site also captions shots of the young and pretentious with lines such as: "Hold on, let me check to see if Topshop sells any iPhone purses."
  • (8) The most pretentious group are young patients working in industry.
  • (9) They're charged with posh-lad pretentiousness as a result, though I don't know it's all that uncommon for bands to plunder snatches of lyrics from wider culture.
  • (10) Newest methods are the technically very pretentious intraarterial perfusion with venous hemofiltration and the chemo-embolization of the hepatic artery requiring meanwhile an adjuvant systemic chemotherapy because the chemo-embolization influences only the arterially supplied part of the metastases.
  • (11) Speaking to Alec Wilkinson of the New Yorker, Springsteen remarked that Seeger "had a real sense of the musician as historical entity – of being a link in the thread of people who sing in others' voices and carry the tradition forward … and a sense that songs were tools, and, without sounding too pretentious, righteous implements when connected to historical consciousness".
  • (12) The detection of this preclinical stage in particular in sporadic cases is in common clinical practice, due to the low prevalence of the disease in the population and pretentious character as regards applied methods, unreal.
  • (13) People talk of "journalese" as though a journalist were of necessity a pretentious and sloppy writer; he may be, on the contrary, and very often is, one of the best in the world.
  • (14) They can now decide for themselves whether that font of wisdom, Halliwell's Film and Video Guide, gets it right by calling it 'a repulsive film in which intellectuals have found acres of significanceÉ it is pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up images and incoherent sound'.
  • (15) Tom is a heavy metal fan who, as Matt says in the film, thinks indie rock is "pretentious bullshit"; the National are all around 40 with their carousing days behind them, so Tom brought the party himself, getting wasted on his own and filming himself for kicks.
  • (16) "You can call it a bacterial heat production effect if you are a pretentious scientist, or you can call it composting," he said.
  • (17) Describe your ideal audience member Russell Kane TR Discerning, critical, pretentious and stupid.
  • (18) With regard to the non-pretentious, simple and safe character and the high yield of the procedure the authors consider thin-needle biopsy under ultrasonographic control a foremost operation which makes morphological assessment even of diffuse liver diseases possible.
  • (19) The operation, though pretentious and time consuming, has the advantage of an extrathoracic approach.
  • (20) A broad swathe of the middle class, not just collectors, lap up the videos and pretentious installations he lambasts (he has never collected video), and dismiss any scepticism as "conservative".

Swagger


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To walk with a swaying motion; hence, to walk and act in a pompous, consequential manner.
  • (v. i.) To boast or brag noisily; to be ostentatiously proud or vainglorious; to bluster; to bully.
  • (v. t.) To bully.
  • (n.) The act or manner of a swaggerer.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There is a certain degree of swagger, a sudden interruption of panache, as Alan Moore enters the rather sterile Waterstones office where he has agreed to speak to me.
  • (2) From flood defences to Crossrail 2, corporation tax cuts to provision for people with disabilities , the risks of Brexit to £20m for Hull: this was a chancellor roaming the political landscape with undiminished swagger and not a hint of apology.
  • (3) Wenger had complained of a sinister media plot to brainwash Arsenal's home fans, as though they were easily led and swing in the breeze, but it all was sweetness and light as Aaron Ramsey continued his early season swagger.
  • (4) Such swagger would look naïve and unreflexive now, in a country assailed by anxiety about its own impotence in the world.
  • (5) Ratko Mladic, opening his defence in The Hague this week, has reason to understand the change in a way he did not when he was swaggering through the Bosnian killing fields.
  • (6) (This is not just swagger: Barton's brother Michael, after all, is currently serving a minimum of 17 years in prison for his part in the racially motivated murder of Anthony Walker in 2005.
  • (7) In an ideal world one of the candidates will swagger over to the other, as Al Gore did to George Bush in 2000.
  • (8) I am aware, too, that I associate tattoos on men with aggression, the kind of arrogant swagger that goes with vest tops, dogs on chains, broken beer glasses.
  • (9) Twin muses of Liam Gallagher and Jimi Hendrix added up to louche tailoring, flower prints and urban staples like a swagger-tastic Gallagher parka.
  • (10) A distinct swagger in his step became apparent as his career developed at Boro but right up until his appearance at Bradford crown court, there had been little evidence of a genuinely darker side to his nature.
  • (11) Lucky enough to catch him playing its songs at New York’s Ritz early in 1981, I was instantly won over by his thrilling talent and androgynous swagger.
  • (12) Cut to the elegant hotel corridor, Gimme Shelter screaming on the soundtrack, and Denzel emerges, swaggering and magnificent in full pilot's uniform, ready to go to work.
  • (13) The 22-year-old was outstanding, a swaggering, forceful presence who left City's players with little choice but to hack him down.
  • (14) Most important are the donors, who can usually be spotted by their swagger and the strong smell of cigar-smoke.
  • (15) Tottenham’s Denmark playmaker had not completed 90 minutes since 15 August, a knee injury hampering his early-season form, but two free-kick equalisers blew away the cobwebs here and ensured deserved parity for his team in a vibrant game characterised by swagger on the ball and defensive jitters off it.
  • (16) In Richard Moore’s book The Bolt Supremacy he describes the odd cocktail of bonhomie and saccharine that surrounded the sprinter’s swaggering conquest of London 2012.
  • (17) It is an assessment that continues to resonate, not just because of who it came from but also because it aptly encapsulates the swaggering brilliance of that Liverpool team, one which having crushed Forest went on to clinch the club's 17th league championship at a canter.
  • (18) Promoting Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp swaggered through the hall dressed as his character, Captain Jack Sparrow, as fans were told that Orlando Bloom’s character, Will Turner, will return for the fifth instalment of the franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, in 2017.
  • (19) Former Labour staffers, moderate refugees fleeing the hard-left takeover under Corbyn, sometimes bristled at what they saw as unmerited swagger in the step of the Downing Street contingent, who expected to easily replicate their victory in the previous May’s general election.
  • (20) But it also reflects US elite breast-beating about economic failure, the rise of China and a loss of global swagger since the Bush years.