Adjacent Words

Impostor definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

IMPOS'TOR, n. [Low L. impostor, from impono. See Impose.]
One who imposes on others; a person who assumes a character for the purpose of deception; a deceiver under a false character. It seems to be yet unsettled,whether Perkin Warbeck was an impostor. A religious impostor may be one who assumes the character of a preacher, without authority; or one who falsely pretends to an extraordinary commission from heaven,and terrifies people with denunciations of judgments.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a person who makes deceitful pretenses [syn: imposter, impostor, pretender, fake, faker, fraud, sham, shammer, pseudo, pseud, role player]

Merriam Webster's

or imposter noun Etymology: Late Latin impostor, from Latin imponere Date: 1564 one that assumes false identity or title for the purpose of deception

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (also imposter) 1 a person who assumes a false character or pretends to be someone else. 2 a swindler. Derivatives: impostorous adj. impostrous adj. Etymology: F imposteur f. LL impostor (as IMPOST(1))

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Impostor Im*pos"tor, n. [L. impostor a deceiver, fr. imponere to impose upon, deceive. See Impone.] One who imposes upon others; a person who assumes a character or title not his own, for the purpose of deception; a pretender. ``The fraudulent impostor foul.'' --Milton. Syn: Deceiver; cheat; rogue. See Deceiver.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

also imposter(impostors) Someone who is an impostor is dishonestly pretending to be someone else in order to gain an advantage. He was an imposter, who masqueraded as a doctor. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Deceiver, pretender, cheat, rogue, trickster, tricker, knave, hypocrite, Pharisee, quack, charlatan, mountebank, double-dealer.

Moby Thesaurus

ape, beguiler, blagueur, bluff, bluffer, charlatan, cheat, clinquant, con man, confidence man, conformist, copier, copycat, copyist, counterfeit, counterfeiter, cuckoo, deceiver, dissembler, dissimulator, dummy, echo, echoer, echoist, fake, fakement, faker, flimflam man, forger, forgery, fourflusher, frame-up, fraud, hoax, humbug, hypocrite, imitation, imitator, impersonator, imposter, junk, malingerer, mime, mimer, mimic, mimicker, misleader, mock, mocker, mockingbird, monkey, mountebank, parrot, paste, pettifogger, phony, pinchbeck, plagiarist, poll-parrot, polly, polly-parrot, poser, poseur, pretender, put-on, put-up job, quack, quacksalver, quackster, ringer, rip-off, saltimbanco, sham, shammer, shark, sheep, shoddy, shyster, simulacrum, simulator, swindle, swindler, tinsel, trickster, whited sepulcher