pretender, n. 1. humbug, humbugger, masquerader, wolf in sheep's clothing, dissembler, hypocrite, pharisee; imposter, fake, Inf. faker, fraud, sham, phony; charlatan, quack, empiric, mountebank, Inf. shyster; deceiver, bamboozler, hoodwinker, trickster; misleader, bluff, bluffer, Inf. fourflusher, deluder, duper; cheat, cheater, defrauder, chiseler, bilker; exploiter, confidence man, SI. con man, SI. rip-off artist, SI. flimflam man, smooth or fast talker; sharper, sharpie, shark; liar, prevaricator, fibber.
2. Often
pretender to claimant, claimer, aspirant, seeker, suitor, competitor, rival, candidate.
3. poser, poseur, posturer, attitudinarian; braggart, boaster, SI. blowhard, puffer, SI. gasbag, SI. windbag.
pretense, n. 1. pretending, feigning, faking, simulation; make believe, fantasy, fabrication, concoction, invention, creation; figment, fiction, fable; false show, semblance, appearance, guise, color; disguise, camouflage, masquerade, mask, veil, cloak, cover; mummery, shield, deflection, false front, false colors, obscuration; gloss, varnish, veneer.
2. humbug, hoax, fraud, wile, ruse, sham, Archaic. chouse; counterfeit, fake, falsification; deception, delusion, imposition, imposture, artifice, humbug-gery; dissemblance, misrepresentation, untruthfulness; falsehood, lie, fib, dodge, blind, feint, shift; swindle, trickery, trick.
3. pretension, pretext, ostensible or alleged reason, motive. See - pretext (def. 1).
4. pretentiousness, show-offishness, peacockishness, pomposity, pompousness, inflation; vaunting, flaunting, affectation, Brit. SI. side; boasting, gasconade, bragging, fanfaronade, braggadocio, bluster, SI. gas, SI. wind, SI. hot air; ostentatiousness, showiness, gaudiness, loudness.
pretentious, adj. 1. alleging, claiming, professing, purporting, avowing; pretending, feigning.
2. pompous, bombastic, inflated, vain, vainglorious, peacockish, show-offish; boastful, bragging, flaunting, rodomontade; egotistical, self-important, self-glorifying, fastuous, arrogant, haughty, puffed-up, Inf. highfalutin; stuck-up, conceited, high-and-mighty, Brit. SI. toffee-nosed; complacent, smug; dandified, foppish, Inf. la-di-da, preening, mannered, affected.
3. ostentatious, overwrought, overdone, overdecorated, extreme; artificial, surface, specious, doggy; ornate, baroque, rococo, gaudy; high-toned, high-flown, flowery, florid, grandiose, elaborate, spectacular, fancy; orotund, conspicuous, loud, garish, brassy, showy, flashy, flamboyant, glittering, theatrical, SI. grandstand; raw, crude, vulgar, untasteful, tasteless.
preternatural, adj. 1. abnormal, anomalous, anomalistic, unnatural, supranatural; unusual, uncommon, exceptional, singular; fabulous, remarkable, extraordinary, out of the ordinary, out of this world; wondrous, wonderful, marvelous, miraculous, thau-maturgic, thaumaturgical.
2. supernatural, supernormal, hypernormal, preter-normal; superhuman, preterhuman; superphysical, hyperphysical.