Cold male lacking pretence (9)
I believe the answer is:
heartless
'cold' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'male lacking pretence' is the wordplay.
'male' becomes 'he' (he refers to a man).
'lacking pretence' becomes 'artless' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'he'+'artless'='HEARTLESS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for heartless that I've seen before include "Completely lacking in feeling" , "insensitive" , "Cold-blooded" , "Lacking feeling through cardiac deficiency" , "Uncaring" .)