Word.ws English Dictionary

pretendant

pretendant noun: a pretender; a claimant.

Noun

pretendant (plural pretendants)

  1. (dated) A pretender; a claimant.
  2. (obsolete) A suitor.
    • Bur at laſt his fight being as odious to me, as his company was troubleſome, I let him know in very ſharp terms how much I hated him, bidding him never imagine or think of obtaining me, for he ſhould ſooner bring the heavens and earth together than obtain my love, commanding him to avoid my ſight....1661, [Samuel Pordage], “The Historie of Euripedes”, in Eliana. A New Romance: Formed by an English Hand., London: […] T[homas] R[oycroft] for Peter Dring […], →OCLC, page 21
    • Thelwall Salusbury too—then Vicar of Offley, my Cousin, my Pretendant—& my Enemy—of Course, I see today among the Black List in our Newspaper.1803 July 25, Hester Lynch Thrale, “To Mʳ Piozzi 25: July 1803—Brynbella”, in Katharine C[anby] Balderston, editor, Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs. Piozzi), 1776–1809...

Adjective

pretendant (not comparable)

  1. (dated) Claiming to be someone or something; having a claim.
    • Elſe ô how eaſie had it beene for thee / All the pretendant race t’haue laid full low / If thou proceeded hadſt with crueltie, / Not ſuffering anie fatall branch to grow: […]1595, Samuel Daniel, “The Fovvrth Booke”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC, stanza 35...
    • Firſt you muſt take it for granted, that if his Majeſty could have heard or could conceive that any other had right, (whom theſe pretendant Princes did oppoſe) his reſpect to no Man (never ſo near) could have drawn him againſt his Honour and Conſcience: […]1609 October 4, R[obert Cecil, 1st Earl of] Salisbury; H[enry Howard, 1st Earl of] Northampton; [Charles Howard, 1st Earl of] Nottingham; T[homas Howard, 1st Earl of] Suffolk; E[dward Somerset, 4th...

Forms of pretendant

pluralpretendants
alternative formpretendent

Origin of pretendant

From Middle French pretendant, from the present participle of pretendre (“to claim”). By surface analysis, pretend + -ant.

Questions about pretendant

What does pretendant mean?
Pretendant means a pretender; a claimant.
What part of speech is pretendant?
Pretendant can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of pretendant?
The plural of pretendant is pretendants.

Words near pretendant in the dictionary

  1. pretemporal
  2. pretence
  3. pretenceless
  4. pretences
  5. pretend
  6. pretendant
  7. pretendants
  8. pretended
  9. pretendedly
  10. pretendence
  11. pretendences

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pretendant (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pretendant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pretendant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.