pretender
Americannoun
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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
The 100m breaststroke competition could be the ultimate showdown between a champion and the young pretender.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2024
But it is necessary to know how to colour over this nature effectively, and to be a great pretender and dissembler.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
Football is littered with any number of former pretenders to the Messi throne, all of whom have achieved and suffered varying degrees of success and adversity.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 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
It's a tournament's watershed, where contenders rise and pretenders are washed away.
From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2025
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.
