pretending vs charade

pretending and charade both are nouns.

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

As nouns, charade is a hyponym of pretending; that is, charade is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than pretending:

Other hyponyms of pretending include appearance, show, make-believe, pretend, affectation, affectedness, mannerism, pose, masquerade.

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