Wiktionary

impostor

English

edit
 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

From Middle French imposteur, respelled in the Latin manner; ultimately from Latin impositor, agent form of Latin imponere (“to impose”).

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit
Examples (term referenced in unusual person)

(In these examples, italicized terms refer to the same thing.)

  • The authors believe that our work speaks for itself.
  • Dad is coming home to fetch my tools.

impostor (plural impostors)

  1. Someone who attempts to deceive by using an assumed name or identity.
    • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Consent”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 153:
      "It were dishonour in me to yield. I will not play the part of an impostor, whom my uncle must despise even while he screens. No; these estates are his right: let him take them; I will not buy them with his daughter's hand."
    • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
      “I said he had a criminal face.” “He can't help his face.” “He can help being a crook and an impostor. Calls himself a butler, does he? The police could shake that story. He's no more a butler than I am.”
  2. (computer graphics) A sprite or animation integrated into a three-dimensional scene to look like part of the 3D world.
    Coordinate term: billboard
  3. (linguistics) A term referenced in an unusual grammatical person.
    • 2014, Daniel Kaufman, “The Syntax of Indonesian Imposters”, in Chris Collins, editor, Cross-Linguistic Studies of Imposters and Pronominal Agreement, →ISBN, page 105:
      Interestingly, Wang shows that Chinese allows the appearance of an indexical pronoun alongside the imposter, as in (31).
    • 2018, Angela Xiaoxue He, Rhiannon Luyster, Sudha Arunachalam, “Personal pronoun usage in maternal input to infants at high vs. low risk for autism spectrum disorder”, in First Language, volume 38, number 5, →DOI:
      One possibility is that mothers of HR [higher-risk] infants frequently use non-pronoun forms in place of pronouns, as in the impostor uses noted above.

Usage notes

edit

impostor is the traditional spelling; imposter was relatively rare, but has become almost as common as impostor since 2000.[1]

Synonyms

edit

Hyponyms

edit

Derived terms

edit

Translations

edit

Catalan

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

impostor m (plural impostors, feminine impostora)

  1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Further reading

edit

Galician

edit

Etymology

edit

From Late Latin impostor.

Noun

edit

impostor m (plural impostores, feminine impostora, feminine plural impostoras)

  1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Further reading

edit

Latin

edit

Etymology

edit

From earlier impositor, agent noun of impōnō.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

impostor m (genitive impostōris); third declension

  1. (Late Latin) impostor

Declension

edit

Third-declension noun.

singular plural
nominative impostor impostōrēs
genitive impostōris impostōrum
dative impostōrī impostōribus
accusative impostōrem impostōrēs
ablative impostōre impostōribus
vocative impostor impostōrēs

Descendants

edit

References

edit

Polish

edit

Alternative forms

edit

Etymology

edit

Learned borrowing from Late Latin impostor. Doublet of imposter.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

impostor m pers

  1. (dated) impostor (someone who uses a false identity)
    Hypernym: oszust

Declension

edit
Declension of impostor
singular plural
nominative impostor impostorzy/impostory (deprecative)
genitive impostora impostorów
dative impostorowi impostorom
accusative impostora impostorów
instrumental impostorem impostorami
locative impostorze impostorach
vocative impostorze impostorzy

Further reading

edit

Portuguese

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

Pronunciation

edit
 
 

  • Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

Noun

edit

impostor m (plural impostores, feminine impostora, feminine plural impostoras)

  1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)
edit

Further reading

edit

Romanian

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from French imposteur.

Noun

edit

impostor m (plural impostori)

  1. impostor

Declension

edit
Declension of impostor
singular plural
indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) impostor impostorul (niște) impostori impostorii
genitive/dative (unui) impostor impostorului (unor) impostori impostorilor
vocative impostorule impostorilor

Spanish

edit

Etymology

edit

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Cognate with English impostor.

Pronunciation

edit
  • IPA(key): /imposˈtoɾ/ [ĩm.posˈt̪oɾ]
  • Rhymes: -oɾ
  • Syllabification: im‧pos‧tor

Noun

edit

impostor m (plural impostores, feminine impostora, feminine plural impostoras)

  1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)
edit

Further reading

edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=impostor&oldid=82559907"