as in fraud
one who makes false claims of identity or expertise
it turns out that the guy who claimed to work for a modeling agency was just a pretender
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of pretender
Carter noted that City Hall office workers will return to their cubicles three days per week as of April 1.
Related Articles
Contenders or pretenders?
—
Frederick Melo, Twin Cities, 26 Mar. 2025
Every decision carries weight, and in a league where the line between contender and pretender is razor-thin, there’s little room for error.
—Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 6 Jan. 2025
The only saving grace for City is that there is no clear pretender to take its place as the top dog in English soccer.
—Joe Prince-Wright, Nbc Sports, NBC News, 20 Dec. 2024
Ball could be that piece to turn the Rockets from pretenders to contenders.
—Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for pretender
Frederick Melo, Twin Cities, 26 Mar. 2025
Every decision carries weight, and in a league where the line between contender and pretender is razor-thin, there’s little room for error.
—Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 6 Jan. 2025
The only saving grace for City is that there is no clear pretender to take its place as the top dog in English soccer.
—Joe Prince-Wright, Nbc Sports, NBC News, 20 Dec. 2024
Ball could be that piece to turn the Rockets from pretenders to contenders.
—Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for pretender
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pretender
Noun
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More than £46 billion in loans had been disbursed by various lenders through the scheme, according to the Department for Business and Trade, but the agency also admitted there had been more than 100,000 cases of loss due to fraud and error.—
Robert Olsen,
Forbes.com,
28 May 2025
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Instead of addressing waste and fraud and providing adults with a path to productive and independent lives through meaningful work, the Pritzker administration attacks these reform efforts.—
Regan Deering,
Chicago Tribune,
28 May 2025
Noun
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People will either fall for fakes—or doubt the truth.—
Jesus Mesa,
MSNBC Newsweek,
28 May 2025
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When the computer was seized, in November, creating digital fakes was not yet considered a crime.—
Tiffany Hsu,
New York Times,
22 May 2025
Noun
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Pottery Barn Outlet Bedding Deals There are plenty of deals on comfortable quilts, cozy comforters, and shams in the Pottery Barn bedding sale section.—
Stephanie Osmanski,
Better Homes & Gardens,
26 May 2025
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Quince often has Bundle & Save offers for up to 25% off select clothing and bedding sets with hotel-quality sheets, duvets, and shams.—
Alanna Martine Kilkeary,
Glamour,
20 May 2025
Noun
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And the ones who haven’t probably are impostors. Deepen your worldview with Monitor Highlights.—
Peter Rainer,
Christian Science Monitor,
21 May 2025
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However, sometimes there’s an impostor among us, and one celebrity who always falls victim to AI deepfakes is Katy Perry.—
Lea Veloso,
StyleCaster,
6 May 2025
Noun
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Trying to keep the population safe from a novel infectious disease, battling to understand the virus, but also navigating people's suspicion of vaccines and science, and their desire to use bleach and ivermectin, egged on by charlatans.—
David Faris,
MSNBC Newsweek,
11 Apr. 2025
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For them, the Nazarene is not a charlatan, but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel.—
Daniel Burke,
NPR,
9 May 2025
Noun
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With tariffs on pharmaceuticals, the mountebank of Mar-A-Lago wants to punish a small democracy of 5.3 million people that for the past 60 years has worked its way into the top table of drug research and production: Ireland.—
Kevin Rennie,
Hartford Courant,
29 Mar. 2025
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Gould observed that Jerry Falwell had taken up the mountebank’s mission of William Jennings Bryan.—
Michael Hiltzik,
Los Angeles Times,
26 July 2024
Noun
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The Spare Room by Helen Garner This is a book about a woman, Helen, who decides to let her old friend, Nicola, who is dying of cancer, come and stay with her in Melbourne while Nicola sees a local quack doctor.—
The New Yorker,
New Yorker,
21 May 2025
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And this is why hydropathy was not like many of the other quack medical therapies of the not-quite-modern era.—
John Jeremiah Sullivan,
Harpers Magazine,
29 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pretender.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pretender. Accessed 10 Jun. 2025.
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