to put on airs
4
8.4
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
hacerse el importante
- Never put on airs.
Not as a hero, but rather as somebody who's basically like the rest of us, but puts on airs or lives a privileged life.
- Not as a hero, but rather as somebody who's basically like the rest of us, but puts on airs or lives a privileged life.
- So this isn't just a matter of, you know, putting on airs and trying to appear to be more knowledgeable than you actually are.
- I shouldn't myself, for example, put on airs in providing you this commentary because all I'm doing is is sort of bridging a gap, right?
Examples
-
For one thing, I was brought up not to put on airs.
Fiction book (1995) -
I told you they would put on airs and forget their place, didn't I?
Fiction book (1992) -
Who are you to put on airs?
-
I hope he's not one of those guys that go around putting on airs.
-
And you don't need to put on airs with me.
Fiction book (1997) -
They didn't put on airs about it; they just did it.
Academic text (2003) -
She said that I put on airs, that I use big words like gesture and devastate.
-
According to Sylvia, the other blacks in the neighborhood tended to "laugh" at Miss Moore, made fun of her behind her back, and even "kinda hated her" because she seemed to them to be putting on airs.
Academic text (2003) -
I thought about it a lot and realized that I'm proud that I don't put on airs; I'm not socially graceful, but I don't try and pretend to be.
Blog text (6) -
She always tries to impress others by putting on airs, but we all know she's just acting.
Synonyms
216
3.2
To act proudly to get attention or praise
54
6.5
To act in a way that is not natural to impress others
10
7.7
To pretend to be more important or clever than you are
6
8.2
Act as if you are better than other people
2
8.9
To pretend to be someone you are not to impress others
1
7.5
Act in a flashy way to get attention
1
6.7
Behave as if you are better than other people
1
9.9
Act in a showy way to impress people
1
8.1
To act as if you are better than other people
1
7.5
To behave so others notice you in an embarrassing way
To act in a way that is not natural to impress others
To show things in a way that makes people admire you
Act in a loud way to get attention and impress people
Act in a way that shows off to make yourself feel important
To act as if you are better than others and tell them they are wrong
To talk about yourself to show you are more important
How Pretentious
Surface Forms
Morphology
put + on + airs
The expression composes 'put on' (to adopt or display) with 'airs' (affected manners), so a learner who knows these constituents can infer the meaning 'to behave pretentiously' directly. The construction is conventional but compositional and parallels cross-linguistic patterns of 'putting on' a demeanor, making it transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
The idiom put on airs may come from the picture of someone putting on a new air like a coat, because 'air' once meant a showy way of behaving. That's why it means 'to act as if you are better than others'.