pretender

[pri-ten-der]

See more synonyms for pretender on Thesaurus.com

noun

a person who pretends, especially for a dishonest purpose.
an aspirant or claimant (often followed by to): a pretender to the throne.
a person who makes unjustified or false claims, statements, etc., as about personal status, abilities, intentions, or the like: a pretender to literary genius.

Origin of pretender

First recorded in 1585–95; pretend + -er¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for pretender

quack, hypocrite, fraud, actor, deceiver, impostor, faker, imitator, fake, snob, charlatan, dissembler

Examples from the Web for pretender

Contemporary Examples of pretender

And cancer, deceiver, pretender, coward; it cannot even subsist without the vibrant people it depends on.
No One Ever Loses to Cancer
Dushka Zapata
October 8, 2014
All was jolly and genial between the king of late night and the pretender to the throne.
Stephen Colbert’s Groveling ‘Late Show’ Debut
Tom Shales
April 23, 2014
Rush Limbaugh has called Dede Scozzafava a “pretender” and an “extreme liberal Republican” who “might as well be a Democrat.”
The Last Days of the GOP
John Batchelor
October 30, 2009

Historical Examples of pretender

He has an air, it is true, but his air is not a breeze, like the air of a pretender to fashion.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327
Various
The moment might be propitious to the pretender, however false his claim.
The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series
Rafael Sabatini
And yet you see after all I am like to turn out only a pretender.
The Bramleighs Of Bishop's Folly
Charles James Lever
A particular account of the "Pretender's Magazine" is extant.
Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745.
Mrs. Thomson
The General asked him "if he had been along with the Pretender?"
Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745
Mrs. Thomson

British Dictionary definitions for pretender

pretender

noun

a person who pretends or makes false allegations
a person who mounts a claim, as to a throne or title

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for pretender

1590s, "one who intends;" 1620s as "one who puts forth a claim;" agent noun from pretend (v.). Specifically of a claimant to the English throne from 1690s.