public pretender
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.80 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
3
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "They tell me I'm due a fair trial, but they give me a public defender (or should I say public pretender?) that has four times his normal case load. So no matter how I feel or what I think, I'm forced to put all my faith in this public pretender and hope he hasn't sold me out too badly."
- "Felipe defiantly describes what he saw in jail: "There were young guys... with 700-1,000 pounds [of marijuana]. My case, by comparison, was peanuts. It is all about money in El Paso—if you have the money, you get off; if you have a good lawyer, you get off. It's all about your lawyer. The people without money have to get a 'public pretender.'""
- "Are you saying that you want a free lawyer? […] Without me, they're gonna lock you up and throw away the key. I'm sorry, did I say "five years"? You go ahead and play Russian roulette with a public pretender, you're gonna end up doing a decade in Los Lunas!"
Etymology
Blend of public defender + pretender, suggesting that the public defender is merely pretending to provide competent legal representation.