a claimant to the throne or to the office of ruler (usually without just title)
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a person who makes deceitful pretenses
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a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives
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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.
It is the shallow, unimproved intellects that are the confident pretenders to certainty. --Glanvill.
2. One who pretends, simulates, or feigns.
"David Duke is not a Republican," Atwater said. "He's a pretender, a charlatan and a political opportunist who is looking for any organization he can find to try to legitimize his views of racial and religious bigotry and intolerance.
People will vote for Mr Blair, said this phantom Tory, 'without feeling they are voting for Labour'. The young pretender will thank nobody for recycling that observation.
But they could make things interesting for an Eastern Conference pretender or two before the winter game ends around July 4th.
Curiously, the same may be said of Mr Kenneth Clarke, the man got up by the press as the pretender.
But in proving again that she's no pretender to the crown, Koko Taylor rips into Ted Nugent's "Hey Baby" as if it were one of her own.