pretension

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A specious allegation; a pretext.
• noun A claim to something, such as a skill or profession.
• noun The advancing of such a claim.
• noun The unwarranted assumption that one is deserving of merit, or behavior indicative of such an assumption; pretentiousness.
• noun An instance of pretentiousness.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of putting forth a claim (specifically, a false one), particularly to merit, dignity, or importance; pretentiousness.
• noun Hence, a claim; an alleged or assumed right, not necessarily false.
• noun A false representation; a pretext; a sham.
• noun An assertion; a proposition.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of pretending, or laying claim; the act of asserting right or title.
• noun A claim made, whether true or false; a right alleged or assumed; a holding out the appearance of possessing a certain character.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A claim or aspiration to a particular status or quality.
• noun Pretentiousness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the quality of being pretentious (behaving or speaking in such a manner as to create a false appearance of great importance or worth)
• noun a false or unsupportable quality
• noun the advancing of a claim