Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Would-be \Would"-be`\, a. Desiring or professing to be; vainly pretending to be; as, a would-be poet.
Wiktionary
a. 1 attempting or desiring something 2 unfulfilled or frustrated in realizing an ambition n. One who aspires to something; a wannabe.
WordNet
Usage examples of "would-be".
Though Catholic adoption services took considerable care in the placement of children, they were not pointlessly slow and obstructive, as were public agencies, especially when the would-be adopters were solid members of the community like Hatch and Lindsey, and when the adoptee was a disabled child with no option except continued institutionalization.
We must caution the would-be novelist to use adverbs and adverbial clauses sparingly.
Marcella led the would-be anecdotist to the punch-bowl, and, under the cover of operations there, spoke to her in an undertone.
Would-be timefarers had to spend at least two days with her at the auberge while she and her computer checked civil status and psychosocial profile.
If anything happened to Belet Vor it would be just the excuse needed by some would-be Bradhi of Thieves.
The would-be solver will naturally focus on finding a way to checkmate on this square, making the problem too easy.
Later on, when the dancing began, a bevy of would-be partners crowded round the girl, and after that, he had only seen her as she whirled round in a waltz or played her part in the cotillon led by Ruel Bey.
He was thinking of the would-be Russian defector Vishnevsky and his wife strapped onto stretchers.
So when the would-be Confederates of Maryland, led by the Mayor of Baltimore, began tearing up rails, burning bridges, and cutting the wires, the Union Government found itself enisled in a hostile sea.
Meridian, entelechy of the seventh sphere, lord of dream and shadow, faced his would-be assassin little strengthened.
While he was setting down the parts of a fugal theme provided by his teacher, Bonvissuto was interviewing would-be choral scholars and students in the next room.
To be missing from a meeting is to have ceded your place within the charmed circle, to run the risk of falling out of fashion, as serious a fate for the ambitious researcher as for the would-be member of the glitterati who misses a party in London, Paris or New York.
At the moment, though, the nervous, cowering Gubber Anshaw seemed something less than plausible in the role of would-be murderer.
Only then did he return to us and tell us that the visitors had been the mother and sister of my would-be murderer, Piebald, and that they had come out from Puckeridge, some way north of London.
BODIES later identified as Perry and Heather Noto of Beverly Hills and chef Remy Asticot were found the next night when would-be patrons of La Maison Punaise flocked to the trendy restaurant to sample the delicious popcorn shrimp glowingly described in the LA.