How to Use pretender in a Sentence

pretender

noun
  • Crazy as this sport is, all four teams might be pretenders.
    — Ken Rosenthal, New York Times, 10 Sep. 2025
  • That's the record in this league against this guy who is a pretender.
    — Jeremy Cluff, The Arizona Republic, 5 Dec. 2020
  • But many pretender have flamed out soon enough in recent years.
    — Ira Winderman, sun-sentinel.com, 29 Oct. 2021
  • The day that love changed the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away.
    — Chris Morris, Fortune, 22 Sep. 2017
  • The Cult of the Beaver has to fend off pretenders.
    — Aj Willingham, AJC.com, 13 Jan. 2026
  • Of those four, the Colts are deemed more of a pretender than the others.
    — Scott Horner, The Indianapolis Star, 4 Nov. 2020
  • But the Bolts don't have enough pieces to go from pretenders to contenders.
    — Robert Marvi, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Aug. 2025
  • Making the plays to win in the clutch separates the top teams from the pretenders.
    — oregonlive, 27 Oct. 2019
  • Ball could be that piece to turn the Rockets from pretenders to contenders.
    — Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
  • To go along with the pretender aesthetic, a lot of the parts under the glass are fake.
    — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 14 July 2023
  • The Bruins – and, yes, with their fair share of good luck – made their guests look like pretenders.
    — Steve Conroy, Boston Herald, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Is the team a contender, a pretender or rebuilding?
    — Law Murray, New York Times, 18 May 2026
  • The King of Poland and the pretender to the throne of Sweden.
    — Katie Wiseman, IndyStar, 4 Nov. 2025
  • The American was a brash, up and coming pretender to the crown.
    — Don Maines, Houston Chronicle, 21 Feb. 2018
  • No team has a more precarious spot on the pretender/contender fence line.
    — Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 11 Dec. 2020
  • To add to the challenge, Brady also left his mark on the latest pretender to his crown.
    — Peter Carline, New York Times, 26 June 2026
  • The pretenders, the arrivistes, the people who go to be Seen.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 26 Oct. 2017
  • Just this week alone, there's potential for some of these contenders to fall into the pretender pool.
    — Chase Goodbread, The Tennessean, 20 Nov. 2024
  • Balans, the first British pretender, went on sale earlier this year.
    — 1843, 27 Sep. 2019
  • His rude personal style ruffles the feathers of many who see him as a pretender or a huckster.
    — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 30 May 2017
  • But over the course of six months and multiple meetings, the pretenders are amply exposed.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 July 2019
  • Against this onslaught of pretenders, the Prius’s grip on the throne has become tenuous.
    — Annie White, Car and Driver, 10 July 2017
  • And yet, in and amongst this desperate reporting, a silent pretender has emerged in the form of Vans slip-ons.
    — Daniel Rodgers, Vogue, 25 July 2024
  • The Red Sox have willingly turned themselves into a pretender to save a few bucks.
    — Chad Finn, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Feb. 2020
  • The Pahlavi pretender himself certainly thinks so.
    — Bobby Ghosh, Time, 9 Jan. 2026
  • Catherine set in motion a devious plan to lure the pretender princess to Russia.
    — National Geographic, 6 Aug. 2019
  • Notre Dame was exposed as a pretender, at least in relation to the Playoff.
    — George Schroeder, USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2019
  • Let’s look at the six major Oscar categories and break down the contenders from the pretenders.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 10 Jan. 2020
  • The Mendoza line of contender/pretender is often seen as five games out of a playoff spot at the trade deadline.
    — kansascity, 28 Mar. 2018
  • Nearly 10% into the season, the Hawks look more like a pretender than a contender.
    — Jimmy Greenfield, chicagotribune.com, 26 Oct. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pretender.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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