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
Daniel Dubois was the heavyweight champion lacking a crowning moment, but on Saturday the young pretender from Greenwich legitimised his reign.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2024
But when she saw the stupid way in which she rejected a pretender who for many reasons was more desirable than a prince, she gave up all hope.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The collapse of a million Laker mistakes ended with one Denver Nuggets masterpiece, the ugliness of pretenders trumped by the beauty of champions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2024
What I love about Luton is they are not pretenders.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2024
Friends turn into enemies and enemies become friends, among politicians and pretenders.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 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.
