means a claim to importance, sophistication, or quality that isn't really earned or backed up by substance.

from From Latin praetensio, built on praetendere, literally 'to stretch out in front' — prae- ('before') plus tendere ('to stretch,' the same root that gives us 'tension' and 'tend'). The image is of holding something out before you as a screen or display: a pretext stretched across the truth. The word entered English through Medieval Latin and French, first meaning a formal 'claim' to a right or title, and only later soured into the modern sense of claiming more than you deserve.