Search the Dictionary

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.

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.

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.

lier St. George (Eng. Hist.), James Francis Edward Stuart (son of James II.), called "The Pretender." -- The Young Chevalier, Charles Edward Stuart, son of the Chevalier St. George.

ommunication with the exiled family, he [Atterbury] began to correspond directly with the Pretender. Macualay.

A vain, showy fellow; a conceited, silly man, fond of display; a superficial pretender to knowledge or accomplishments; a fop. Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy Of powdered coxcombs at her levee. Goldsmith. Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs, nature meant but fools. Pope.…

e who deviates from the rules of science and regular practice; an ignorant and unlicensed pretender; a quack; a charlatan. Among the Greek physicians, those who founded their practice on experience called themselves empirics. Krauth-Fleming. Swallow down opinions as silly people do empirics' pills. Locke.…

A riding, or the act of riding, on horseback; horsemanship. The pretender to equitation mounted. W. Irving.

A petty grammarian; a grammatical pedant or pretender. My noble Neophite, my little grammaticaster. B. Jonson.

puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than he is; a false pretender to virtue or piety; one who simulates virtue or piety. The hypocrite's hope shall perish. Job viii. 13. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. Shak.

A stupid, ignorant person; a vain pretender to knowledge; a dunce. An ignoramus in place and power. South.

One who enlightened; esp., a pretender to extraordinary light and knowledge.

s; a person who assumes a character or title not his own, for the purpose of deception; a pretender. "The fraudulent impostor foul." Milton.

Belief in the coming of the Mahdi; fanatical devotion to the cause of the Mahdi or a pretender to that title. -- Mah"dist (#), n.

Any boastful or false pretender; a charlatan; a quack. Nothing so impossible in nature but mountebanks will undertake. Arbuthnot.

All-wise; claiming universal knowledge; as, pansophical pretenders. [R.] John Worthington.

One who puts on an air of learning; one who makes a vain display of learning; a pretender to superior knowledge. Addison. A scholar, yet surely no pedant, was he. Goldsmith.

A pretender to philosophy. [Obs.] Dr. H. More.