1. AskOxford.com, Oxford University Press UK “pretender. . . . noun a person who claims or aspires to a title or position.”
Correction to written style as cited above: Concluding fragment “aspires to a title or position” with redundant indef. article a here substituted “. . . a person who claims or aspires to some title or position” certainly appears no less intelligible.
2. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) “an aspirant or claimant (often fol. by to): a pretender to the throne.”
cx.2 Parenthetic insertion “often fol. by to” perhaps altogether unnecessary if otherwise before newly revised “. . . e.g. a pretender to the throne” so in very proper fashion “an aspirant or claimant: e.g. a pretender to the throne.”
3. WorldNet 3.0, 2006 Princeton University USA “a claimant to the throne or to the office of ruler (usually without just title).”
cx.3 What first exemplifies long-winded construction “a claimant to the throne or to the office of ruler. . .” once hewn out and emended this little bit “a claimant to the throne or some office of ruler (usually without just title)” certainly rings no less eloquent than before.
4. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4.Ed 2006 “One who sets forth a claim, especially a claimant to a throne.”
cx.4 Dull and moronic “especially a claimant” > vastly improved “especially the claimant” where I find alternating seriation a. . .the. . . a easier to read than such outrageous bombast a. . .a. . . a as culled from the original statement: all just to get this much brighter result “One who sets forth a claim, especially the claimant to a throne.”
5. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, cop. 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. “One who lays claim, or asserts a title (to something): a claimant. Specifically, The pretender (Eng. Hist.), the son or the grandson of James II., the heir of the royal family of Stuart, who laid claim to the throne of Great Britain, from which the house was excluded by law.
“It is the shallow, unimproved intellects that are the confident pretenders to certainty.―Glanvill” (All right’n'fine, but just who in the world is Joseph Glanvill anyway?)
cx.5 “One who lays claim, or asserts a title (to something): a claimant. Specifically and more often put in harmless jest, “Old Pretender” James III Stuart 1688-1766 porphyrogenetic issue of apostate King James II last Catholic monarch to lord it over thrice reformed Great Britain in topsy-turvy 1685-88 and so presumptive heir of the royal family of Stuart England, Ireland & Scotland, who once himself and somewhat later on his pretender son Bonnie Prince Charles 1720-1788 also laid claim to said highly disputed throne, from which this reprobate house was now excluded by irrevocable crown law.”
