Put on airs

[8] "Put on" is in modern emphatic use means: "to assume deceptively or falsely; to feign, affect or pretend.

[8] The term was used in a book from 1759 by George Farquhar The Constant Couple "...when she puts on her airs, as you call it.

"[5] The phrase also appears in 1776 in a book by Francis Beaumont called Humorous Lieutenant: "You can give yourself Airs sometimes..."[11] Amidst the United States Civil War, in 1864, a minstrel song (a genre now considered to be racially offensive) with a chorus and eight verses was published.

white folks listen, will you now, this darkey's going to sing -.," and includes two verses about personal vanity, followed by five on various Union Army's victories over the Confederacy, concluding: "Now where's this boasted chivalry, who sport the Stars and Bars?

[17][18] Putting on airs is an example of divergence behavior, that can be, acting in a contrary way to dissociate oneself from their peers.