pretend

"I'd have had to pretend it was about Santa Rosalia, a saint who lived in a cave in Italy in the 17th Century."

From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026

Helen, a pianist, offers to give Minnie voice lessons, as she did her own daughter; Minnie gets to pretend to be Callie’s beautiful and popular best friend.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026

The alleged violations of the convention "are a stain on our collective conscience and it would be irresponsible to pretend that it is not our business," Jallow said.

From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2026

“I’m not going to pretend I’ve followed all the advice myself yet. Maybe I can come back on the show in a little bit and I can update you on how that’s going?”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026

“Anything slightly paranormal. And right now it’s the Spirit of the Sea. If they try to rope you into talking about it, pretend you have to go to the bathroom. That usually works.”

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

You don’t have to buy the whole scenario to agree that what Mr. Xi’s government thinks, or pretends to think, about AI is a concerning variable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 10, 2026

A 2016 video of Pulido has generated controversy, in which he pretends to urinate on Trump's star along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

From Barron's ● Oct. 28, 2026

Early musical shorts like “Morning Walk” and “Danielleanika” lean into his stoic, awkward persona as he pretends to rap or sing a passionate love song.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

The fires are not a freak event, and no one in Greece pretends they are.

From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026

“It’s not normalizing anything if everyone just pretends they don't see it or that the tampons don't exist.”

From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely

Each side denied—or pretended not to notice—how much business it was doing with the enemy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2026

At Thanksgiving, he dozed off at the table, and the kids pretended not to notice.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 9, 2026

"I am the man you left for dead. I am the one you pretended never existed," he declares.

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026

She pretended to be a distressed mother and argued hysterically that it was their job to find him.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

A bird fluttered down to a low branch and chirped as though he were saying something to Red, and I had the feeling she understood the bird, even though she pretended not to notice.

From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff

Fielder is left wondering whether she’s genuinely unaware of the deal Evans negotiated or merely pretending not to know.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026

The phone call had come from Amacher—the man now complaining the situation has been blown out of proportion—who said he had called the center, pretending to be a member of Talarico’s family.

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026

Anthropic’s model was conducting a test involving interactions with randomly selected websites when it submitted the tip pretending to be someone who might have information about an unsolved case, police said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

It’s more money for more stuff, when you should be at least pretending to care about the future.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026

I glance at the family eating Indian tacos and then at the legendary grandparent behind the counter pretending not to watch us.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith