impostor

• imposter
• impostour (obsolete)

From Middle French imposteur.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɒstə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɑstɚ/
• Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

impostor (plural impostors)

1. Someone who attempts to deceive by using an assumed name or identity.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 21345056, 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 1227855:

     “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:10.1177/0142723718782634:

     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.

• impersonator
• See also Thesaurus:deceiver

• quack

From Late Latin impostor.

impostor m (plural impostors, feminine impostora)

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

• “impostor” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “impostor”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2023
• “impostor” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “impostor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Late Latin impostor.

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

• “impostor” in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega, Royal Galician Academy.

From earlier impositor, agent noun of impōnō.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /imˈpos.tor/, [ɪmˈpɔs̠t̪ɔr]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /imˈpos.tor/, [imˈpɔst̪or]

impostor m (genitive impostōris); third declension

1. (Late Latin) impostor
   • 2022, The Chalkeaters (lyrics and music), “A SONGUS AMONGUS”‎, performed by Gabriel Brown:

     Credo in amogum et impostores suspectos / Quo fugiam ab eorum spiritibus.

     I believe in amogus and suspicious impostors / So that I may escape from their spirits.

Third-declension noun.

• -ōris imposter, -ōris in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

• imposter

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Doublet of imposter.

• IPA^(key): /imˈpɔs.tɔr/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔstɔr
• Syllabification: im‧pos‧tor

impostor m pers

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

   Hypernym: oszust

• impostor in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• impostor in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

• impor
• imposto

• “impostor” in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa.

From French imposteur.

impostor m (plural impostori)

1. impostor

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Cognate with English impostor.

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

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

• impuesto
• imponer

• “impostor”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014