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''affectation'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904120411-00-⌔

affectation - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

affectation (countable and uncountable, plural affectations)

  • An attempt to assume or exhibit what is not natural or real; false display; artificial show. [from 1548]1
    • ✤ This poem is strongly tinctured with those pedantic affectations concerning the passion of love…2
    • ✤ [T]hey were not the spoiled children of affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace, and heartfelt unobtrusive delicacy.3
  • An unusual mannerism.
  • (with of, now somewhat rare) An ostentatious fondness for something. [from 1542]1
    • ✤ The grace diuineſt Mercvrie hath done me,/In this vouchſafde diſcouerie of himſelfe,/Binds my obſeruance in the vtmoſt terme/Of ſatisfaction, to his godly will:/Though I profeſſe (without the affectation/Of an enforc’d, and form’d auſteritie)/I could be willing to enioy no place/With ſo vnequall natures.4
    • ✤ Her upper part of decent diſcipline/Shew’d affecation of an ancient line:/And fathers, councils, church and churches head,/Were on her reverend Phylacteries read.5
    • ✤ While for some, women’s lack of knowledge is a matter for censure, throughout the century both male and female writers emphasize that affectation of knowledge, for example when it is not properly assimilated (Du Bosc 1633: 78), and above all pedantry from women, are far more unacceptable.6

Etymology

From Middle French affectation and its etymon Latin affectātiōnem, from affectō (“to feign”).7 By surface analysis, affect +‎ -ation.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA: /ˌæf.ɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australia): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. “affectation, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩ ↩2

  2. 1810, Dr. Samuel Johnson, “Life of Gower”, in The Works of the English Poets ‎, Digitized edition, published 2009: ↩

  3. 1820, William Hazlitt, “Lecture I. Introductory.”, in Lectures Chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. […], London: Stodart and Steuart, […]; Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute, →OCLC, page 2: ↩

  4. 1600 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Cynthias Reuels, or The Fountayne of Selfe-Loue. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 235: ↩

  5. 1687, [John Dryden], “[The First Part]”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, pages 22–23: ↩

  6. 2004, Wendy Ayres-Bennett, “Women’s ‘ignorance’”, in Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France: Methodology and Case Studies, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, chapter 4 (Women’s language), […], page 121: ↩

  7. “affectation, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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Secondary

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