Pretender

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Pretender \Pre*tend"er\, n.
     1. One who lays claim, or asserts a title (to something); a
        claimant. Specifically, The pretender (Eng. Hist.), the
        son or the grandson of James II., the heir of the royal
        family of Stuart, who laid claim to the throne of Great
        Britain, from which the house was excluded by law.


        [1913 Webster]
  
              It is the shallow, unimproved intellects that are
              the confident pretenders to certainty. --Glanvill.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. One who pretends, simulates, or feigns.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Pretender
       n 1: a claimant to the throne or to the office of ruler (usually
            without just title)
       2: a person who makes deceitful pretenses [syn: {imposter}, {impostor},
           {fake}, {faker}, {fraud}, {sham}, {shammer}, {pseudo}, {pseud},
           {role player}]
       3: a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not
          hold [syn: {hypocrite}, {dissembler}, {phony}, {phoney}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  41 Moby Thesaurus words for "pretender":
     actor, affecter, arrogator, aspirant, blagueur, bluff, bluffer,
     candidate, charlatan, claimant, deceiver, fake, faker, fourflusher,
     fraud, hollow man, humbug, impersonator, impostor, malingerer,
     man of straw, mannerist, mountebank, paper tiger, performer, phony,
     playactor, poser, poseur, quack, quacksalver, quackster, ringer,
     rival, saltimbanco, seeker, sham, shammer, straw man, suitor,
     usurper