Meaning of Pretender | Babel Free

Definitions

1. One who intends or purposes.
   obsolete, rare
2. One who puts forth a claim, or who aspires to or aims at something; a claimant, candidate, or aspirant; now, one who makes baseless pretensions.
3. One who aspires to the hand of a woman in marriage; a suitor, a wooer.
   obsolete
4. A claimant to a throne or the office of a ruler; originally in a neutral sense, but now always applied to a claimant who is held to have no just title.
5. One who pretends or lays claim to something; one who makes a profession, show, or assertion, especially without adequate grounds, falsely, or with intent to deceive; a dissembler, deceiver, charlatan, hypocrite.
6. A person who professes beliefs and opinions that they do not hold.

Equivalents

Examples

“Pretensor, a pretender, he that purposeth.”

“Pretendente, a pretendent, a pretender, an intender, a meaner.”

“By how straight a Rule […] must that Pretender carry himselfe, who is to saile thorow the sea of this world, hoping for a fortune from another mans hand?”

“[…]; to consider the direct purposes of God against his enemies, rather than the sinister supplantations of pretenders to places in court; […]”

“Every one is a pretender and a runner; but few carry the prize.”

“The issue of the eldest son excludes all other pretenders, as the son himself (if living) would have done.”

“A candidate for a school at Brewood in Staffordshire; to which, I think, there are seventeen pretenders.”

“I would sooner gain five thousand pounds by restoring you to your rights, than fifty thousand in establishing any of these pretenders in their base assumptions.”

“He, of the two pretenders, that best loves me.”

“An Earles daughter, […] whose mother not allowing him to come as a pretender shee made apointmentt with him and mett him att her cousin’s howse.”

“It is not my design to dispose of Irene to the most noble, but most wealthy of the Pretenders to her Love.”

“If inteſtine Broils allarm the Hive, / (For two Pretenders oft for Empire ſtrive)”

“I Think it necessary to acquaint you, that I have received Advices this Morning from Ostend, that the French Fleet sailed from Dunkirk, Tuesday at three in the Morning, Northward, with the Pretender on board; as also, that Sir George Byng had notice of it the same Day at ten: And he being very much superior to the Enemy both in Number and Strength, I make no question, but, by God’s Blessing, he will soon be able to give a good Account of them.”

“She [Q. Anne] also fixed a new Designation on the Pretended Prince of Wales, and called him the Pretender; he was so called in a new Set of Addresses […] upon this occasion […] made to the Queen.”

“the provost’s enemies at the council-table of the burgh used to observe that he uttered there many a bold harangue against the Pretender, and in favour of King George and government, of which he dared not have pronounced a syllable in his own bedchamber”

“The pretender […] had friends in the tory government more sincere probably and zealous than [the earl of] Oxford.”

“Wullenweber […] turned to the nearest protestant pretender, Duke Christian, and offered him his assistance to obtain the crown.”

“Every province […] had its own Augustus. All these pretenders could not be rightful Emperors.”

“A pretender / To the art, I truely honor, and ſubſcribe / To your maieſties opinion.”

“Make it a feast, and perfit your great injustice / In the surrendringe up this false pretender / To the correction of the law, […]”

“But this pretence of Covenant with God, is so evident a lye, even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not onely an act of an unjust, but also a vile, and unmanly disposition.”

“[…]But, I answer; that it is not so easy an Acquirement as a few ignorant Pretenders may imagine.”

“That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name.”

“I presume that there is no gentleman in Europe that has not heard of the house of Barry of Barryogue, of the kingdom of Ireland, than which a more famous name is not to be found in Gwillim or D’Hozier; and though, as a man of the world, I have learned to despise heartily the claims of some pretenders to high birth who have no more genealogy than the lacquey who cleans my boots, […]”

“Simon, a Samaritan, a pretender to divine authority and supernatural powers.”

“Neither will he be able to distinguish the pretender in medicine from the true physician, nor between any other true and false professor of knowledge.”

CEFR level