charade vs pretending

charade and pretending both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
charade	Yes	No	No	No
pretending	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, pretending is a hypernym of charade; that is, pretending is a word with a broader meaning than charade:

Other hypernyms of charade include feigning, pretence, pretense, simulation.

charade (noun)	pretending (noun)
making a false outward show	the act of giving a false appearance
a word acted out in an episode of the game of charades