Wiktionary

impostor

English edit

 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From Middle French imposteur.

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, but not based on an actual 3D model.
  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.

Case 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

Borrowed 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)

Related terms 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)

Related terms edit

Further reading edit

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=impostor&oldid=77725662"