impostor

English

Alternative forms

• imposter
• impostour (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle French imposteur.

Pronunciation

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

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

Noun

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

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

Synonyms

• impersonator
• See also Thesaurus:deceiver

Hyponyms

• quack

Derived terms

• impostorism
• impostorship
• impostor syndrome
• supernova impostor

 

Translations

someone who uses an assumed identity

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Basque: iruzurti (eu)
• Belarusian: самазва́нец m (samazvánjec)
• Bulgarian: измамник (bg) m (izmamnik), мошеник (bg) m (mošenik)
• Catalan: impostor m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 冒充者, 騙子／骗子 (zh) (piànzi)

• Czech: podvodník (cs), hochštapler m, napodobitel m
• Danish: bedrager c
• Dutch: bedrieger (nl) m
• Esperanto: trompanto
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Faroese: kritlari m, svikari m, svindlari m
• Finnish: huijari (fi), toiseksi tekeytyjä
• French: imposteur (fr) m, imposteuse (fr) f
• Galician: impostor m
• Georgian: თვითმარქვია (tvitmarkvia)
• German: Hochstapler (de) m, Betrüger (de) m
• Hebrew: please add this translation if you can
• Hindi: बहरूपिया (bahrūpiyā)
• Hungarian: szélhámos (hu), csaló (hu), imposztor (hu)
• Italian: impostore (it) m
• Japanese: 偽者 (nisemono)
• Khmer: អ្នកក្លែងបន្លំ (nĕək klaeng bɑnlɑm)
• Korean: 사기꾼 (ko) (sagikkun)
• Latin: planus m
• Latvian: viltvārdis m
• Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
• Macedonian: само́званец m (samózvanec), и́змамник m (ízmamnik)
• Malay: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: bedrager m

• Polish: impostor (pl) m, samozwaniec (pl) m, hochsztapler (pl) m
• Portuguese: impostor (pt) m, impostora f
• Romanian: impostor (ro), impostoare (ro) f
• Russian: самозва́нец (ru) m (samozvánec)
• Serbo-Croatian: samozvanac (sh), varalica (sh)
• Spanish: impostor (es) m, impostora (es) f
• Swedish: bedragare (sv) c
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: самозва́нець m (samozvánecʹ), самозва́нка f (samozvánka)

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

impostor m (plural impostors, feminine impostora)

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Further reading

• “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.

Galician

Etymology

From Late Latin impostor.

Noun

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Further reading

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

Latin

Etymology

From earlier impositor, agent noun of impōnō.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

impostor m (genitive impostōris); third declension

1. (Late Latin) impostor

Declension

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

• (possibly all borrowed from Late Latin, or adapted from Old French)
  • Catalan: impostor
  • → Middle French: imposteur
    • French: imposteur
    • → English: impostor
  • Galician: impostor
  • Italian: impostore
  • → Polish: impostor
  • Portuguese: impostor
  • Romanian: impostor
  • Spanish: impostor

References

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

Polish

Alternative forms

• imposter

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Doublet of imposter.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /imˈpɔs.tɔr/

• Audio

  (file)

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

Noun

impostor m pers

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

   Hypernym: oszust

Declension

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

• impostor in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ĩ.posˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.posˈtoh]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ĩ.posˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.posˈtoh]
  • (São Paulo) IPA^(key): /ĩ.posˈtoɾ/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ĩ.poʃˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.poʃˈtoχ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ĩ.posˈtoɻ/

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ĩ.puʃˈtoɾ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ĩ.puʃˈtoɾ/
  • (Southern Portugal) IPA^(key): /ĩ.puʃˈto.ɾi/

• Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

Noun

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Related terms

• impor
• imposto

Further reading

• “impostor” in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French imposteur.

Noun

impostor m (plural impostori)

1. impostor

Declension

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Cognate with English impostor.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

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

1. impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

Related terms

• imponer
• impuesto

 

Further reading

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