pretender
Americannoun
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pretenders
plural
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a person who pretends, especially for a dishonest purpose.
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an aspirant or claimant (often followed byto ).
a pretender to the throne.
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a person who makes unjustified or false claims, statements, etc., as about personal status, abilities, intentions, or the like.
a pretender to literary genius.
noun
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a person who pretends or makes false allegations
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a person who mounts a claim, as to a throne or title
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pretender
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah of Iran and pretender to the throne, was a scheduled speaker, and the event was packed with Iranian monarchists.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2026
Like many previous movies about those who ply that physical trade, “Rental Family” explores the anguish of a paid pretender troubled by increasingly genuine feelings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
Artists can sniff out genius from fakes, and Thanos sure looks like a parody of a pretender T.O.P. has encountered in the wild.
From Salon ● Jan. 5, 2025
It was a Sunday of high scoring in week six of the NFL as Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson beat out Washington Commanders' young pretender Jayden Daniels in the feature game of the day.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2024
“Honored ones, let me take this...this pretender, this prince of thieves, to the mines, where his words will be the only ones he hears in a long time.”
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
And in return, they surely will win a third consecutive championship against a withering and overmatched group of pretenders that could add Skubal only in their dreams.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
I care about L.A. enough to hold its leaders to a higher accountability, and to scrutinize posers and pretenders who think they can do a better job.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2026
Arsenal have been looking for every vital sign that this is the season when they will finally make the leap from pretenders to Premier League champions – but the indications are already ominous.
From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2024
Corny posers and pretenders didn’t care about sneakers the way we did; that feeling of opening up a box of new Jordan’s was something that we owned.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2024
Our house—the Novis family—we are great pretenders and defenders.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
