What is "pretender"

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.

1590s, "one who intends;" 1620s as "one who puts forth a claim;" agent noun from pretend (v.). Specifically of a claimant to the English throne from 1690s.

n. 1 A person who professes beliefs and opinions that they do not hold. 2 A claimant to an abolished or already occupied throne.

A pretender is one who maintains a claim that he is entitled to a position of honour or rank, which may be occupied by an incumbent (usually more recognised), or whose powers may currently be exercised by another person or authority. Most often, it refers to a former monarch, or descendant thereof, whose throne is occupied or claimed by a rival or has been abolished.

The term "claimant" is sometimes preferred, but the term "pretend" in itself is not pejorative in this context. The original meaning of the English word pretend comes from the French word prétendre (and before that, the Latin praetendo meaning "to stretch out before"), and originally meant "to put forward, to profess or claim". A pretender was, therefore, simply one who put forward or professed a claim to a title or, in modern terms, a claimant. Only later did the word acquire its modern sense of professing or claiming falsely.

The term "pretender" applies to claimants with arguably genuine rights (as the various pretenders of the Wars of the Roses who regarded the de facto monarch as an usurper). It can also be used for those possessing an arguable right to a position who do not actively claim it, as well as impostors with wholly fabricated claims (as pretenders to Henry VII's throne Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck attest). People in the latter category often assume the identities of deceased or missing royalty to support their claim, and are sometimes referred to for clarity as false pretenders or royal impersonators. A Papal pretender is called an Antipope.

A pretender is a claimant to an abolished throne or to a throne already occupied by somebody else. In English, the term is commonly used for two notable claimants to the British throne:

• James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), "The Old Pretender"
• Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788), "The Young Pretender"

Pretender or The Pretender may also refer to:

Pretender (1866–1878) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. After showing promise as a two-year-old in 1868 he improved to become a top class performer in the early part of the following year. He won the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and the Epsom Derby. Pretender was the last horse trained in the North of England to win the Derby. He failed to complete the Triple Crown when he was beaten in the St Leger at Doncaster. Pretender’s form subsequently deteriorated and he failed to record any significant wins despite staying in training for two more seasons. He made no impression as a stallion.