pretender

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

It was a Sunday of high scoring in week six of the NFL as Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson beat out Washington Commanders' young pretender Jayden Daniels in the feature game of the day.

From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2024

But it is necessary to know how to colour over this nature effectively, and to be a great pretender and dissembler.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

It's a tournament's watershed, where contenders rise and pretenders are washed away.

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2025

Arsenal have been looking for every vital sign that this is the season when they will finally make the leap from pretenders to Premier League champions – but the indications are already ominous.

From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2024

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

It seemed that the man was on the lookout for pretenders, for kids who didn’t really want to be there, for wimps.

From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli