Word.ws English Dictionary

pretendent

pretendent is the alternative form of pretendant.

Meaning of pretendant

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

See all 3 meanings of pretendant

Forms of pretendent

pluralpretendents

Origin of pretendent

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

Questions about pretendent

What is pretendent the alternative form of?
Pretendent is the alternative form of pretendant.

Words near pretendent in the dictionary

  1. pretendants
  2. pretended
  3. pretendedly
  4. pretendence
  5. pretendences
  6. pretendent
  7. pretendents
  8. pretender
  9. pretendered
  10. pretendering
  11. pretenderism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pretendent (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

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