pretender

Perhaps only South Africa's Jacques Kallis, who played in many more Tests, is a pretender to the title of cricket's greatest all-rounder which was bestowed on Sobers by fellow legend Richie Benaud.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah of Iran and pretender to the throne, was a scheduled speaker, and the event was packed with Iranian monarchists.

From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2026

Like many previous movies about those who ply that physical trade, “Rental Family” explores the anguish of a paid pretender troubled by increasingly genuine feelings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025

Artists can sniff out genius from fakes, and Thanos sure looks like a parody of a pretender T.O.P. has encountered in the wild.

From Salon ● Jan. 5, 2025

The ironbom were the enemies of the northern lords this Baratheon pretender needed desperately.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

And in return, they surely will win a third consecutive championship against a withering and overmatched group of pretenders that could add Skubal only in their dreams.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026

Football is littered with any number of former pretenders to the Messi throne, all of whom have achieved and suffered varying degrees of success and adversity.

From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026

The collapse of a million Laker mistakes ended with one Denver Nuggets masterpiece, the ugliness of pretenders trumped by the beauty of champions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2024

Corny posers and pretenders didn’t care about sneakers the way we did; that feeling of opening up a box of new Jordan’s was something that we owned.

From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2024

Masters of power politics, engineers of genius, the Mexica were also upstarts and pretenders, arrivistes who falsely claimed a brilliant line of descent.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann