# pretendant
## English
### Alternative forms

* pretendent

### Etymology

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

### Noun

pretendant (plural pretendants)
* (dated) A pretender; a claimant.
* (obsolete) A suitor.
** 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: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. This ſudden mordacity ſtarted my pretendant, rebating his love, it ſuſcicated his paſſion, and with a truculent countenance he told me, that ere long I ſhould repent of my peeviſhneſs, and be glad to accept of that honour which now I deſpiſ’d.
** 1803 July 25, Hester Lynch Thrale, “To M$^r$ Piozzi 25: July 1803—Brynbella”, in Katharine C[anby] Balderston, editor, Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs. Piozzi), 1776–1809, volume II (1784–1809), Oxford, Oxfordshire: At the Clarendon Press, published 1942, →OCLC, page 1041: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.
** 1883, William D[ean] Howells, chapter XXI, in A Woman’s Reason: A Novel, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC, page 459:He would not be serious about Lord Rainford; he made her share in the good-natured slight with which husband and wife always talk over the sorrows of unlucky pretendants. He professed to find something much more admirable in Kimball’s quiet acceptance of the loss he had incurred through Helen: that, he said, was fine, for Kimball was supported by no sentimental considerations, and had no money to back his delicacy.

### Adjective

pretendant (not comparable)
* (dated) Claiming to be someone or something; having a claim.
** 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, folio 74, recto: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: […]
** 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 Earl of] Worcester, E[dward Wotton, 1st Baron] Wotton, “The Lords of the Privy Council to Sir Ralph Winwood”, in [Edmund Sawyer], compiler, Memorials of Affairs of State in the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth and K. James I. Collected (Chiefly) from the Original Papers of the Right Honourable Sir Ralph Winwood, […], volume III, London: […] W[illiam] B[owyer] for T[homas] Ward, […], published 1725, →OCLC, page 76: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: […]
** 1989 November 24, N. D. Gross, “Stable Mates”, in The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7:It was on the coast of Albania, known in ancient times as Illyria, that [William] Shakespeare set the opening scene of his Twelfth Night. Perhaps some student of literature somewhere, desperately seeking a topic for a doctoral thesis, might hunt for parallels between the sad saga of the 17th-century pretendant Messiah and the great Bard of Avon’s somewhat silly rigmarole, that caused me so much trouble in my matric year. I’ll give whoever it is a start: the hubris common to [Shabtai Zvi] and Malvolio.

### References

* “pretendant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* ↑ “pretendant, adj. and n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.