Etymology

pretendant

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Today it means: A pretender; a claimant. Full definition →

Middle French pretendant
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The story

  1. Middle French · borrowed frompretendant
  2. English todaypretendant

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.