impostor

• imposter
• impostour (obsolete)

From Middle French imposteur.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɒstə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɑstɚ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• 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], “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.

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

• impersonator
• See also Thesaurus:deceiver

• quack

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [im.pusˈto]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [im.posˈto]
• IPA^(key): (Valencian) [im.posˈtoɾ]

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, 2024
• “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 (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, since 2012

From earlier impositor, agent noun of impōnō.

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

impostor m (genitive impostōris); third declension

1. (Late Latin) impostor

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 Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

• Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

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.

Borrowed 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)

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