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y a claim to; to allege a title to; to claim. Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend. Dryden.

A pretender; a claimant.

Making a false appearance; unreal; false; as, pretended friend. -- Pre*tend"ed*ly, adv.

The act of pretending; pretense. [Obs.] Daniel.

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.

The character, right, or claim of a pretender. Swift.

As by right or title; arrogantly; presumptuously. Collier.

gustine, who states that they married, but lived in continence, after the manner, as they pretended, of Abel.

mily to the crown of England, and expressly abjuring allegiance to the descendants of the Pretender. Brande & C.

A social pretender on the lookout for advancement.

Given to false show; assuming or pretending to posses what is not natural or real. He is . . . too spruce, too affected, too odd. Shak.

One who affects, assumes, pretends, or strives after. "Affecters of wit." Abp. Secker.

ion; an arbitrary punishment. It was wholly arbitrary in them to do so. Jer. Taylor. Rank pretends to fix the value of every one, and is the most arbitrary of all things. Landor.

Insincere, flattering, or obsequious assent; hypocritical or pretended concurrence. Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. Ld. Chesterfield.

To pretend to possess; to take in appearance. Ambition assuming the mask of religion. Porteus. Assume a virtue, if you have it not. Shak.

Pretended; hypocritical; make-believe; as, an assumed character.

One who assumes, arrogates, pretends, or supposes. W. D. Whitney.

place! -- a cant word of the Elizabethan writers, probably in ridicule of some person who pretended to a knowledge of Latin which he did not possess. Baccare! you are marvelous forward. Shak.

aster has occurred, as: In England, December 6, 1745, when the news of the landing of the Pretender reached London, or May 11, 1866, when a financial panic commenced. In the United States, September 24, 1869, and September 18, 1873, on which financial panics began.

A guerrilla; a marauding assassin; one who pretends to be a peaceful citizen, but secretly harasses a hostile force or its sympathizers. [U.S.] Farrow.