# impostor
## English
### Alternative forms

* imposter
* impostour (obsolete)

### Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French imposteur, respelled in the Latin manner; ultimately from Latin impositor, agent form of Latin imponere (“to impose”).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɪmˈpɒstə/
* (General American) IPA: /ɪmˈpɑstɚ/
* Audio (General American):(file)
* Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor
* Rhymes: -ɒstə(ɹ)

### Noun

impostor (plural impostors)
* 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."
** 1953 November, 'Erca', “Ticket Frauds in the East”, in Railway Magazine, page 778:Then again these figures take no account of the thousands of beggars who travel free in India. Many of these are religious "Sadhus", dressed often in nothing but a loin-cloth, or even less, and their bodies smeared with ashes. A large number of these men are nothing but impostors, but the Hindu railway staff usually are afraid to interfere with them.
** 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.”
* (computer graphics) A sprite or animation integrated into a three-dimensional scene to look like part of the 3D world.
    Coordinate term: billboard
* (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.

#### Synonyms

* impersonator
* See also Thesaurus:deceiver

#### Hyponyms

* quack

#### Derived terms

* impostorism
* impostor phenomenon
* impostorship
* impostor syndrome
* supernova impostor

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

## Catalan
### Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: (Central) [im.pusˈto]
* IPA: (Balearic) [im.posˈto]
* IPA: (Valencia) [im.posˈtoɾ]

### Noun

impostor m (plural impostors, feminine impostora)
* 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, 2025
* “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)
* impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

### Further reading

* “impostor”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2025

## Latin
### Etymology

From earlier impositor, agent noun of impōnō.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /imˈpos.tor/, [ɪmˈpɔs̠t̪ɔr]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /imˈpos.tor/, [imˈpɔst̪or]

### Noun

impostor m (genitive impostōris); third declension
* (Late Latin) impostor

#### Declension

Third-declension noun.

#### 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

Learned borrowing from Late Latin impostor. Doublet of imposter.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /imˈpɔs.tɔr/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ɔstɔr
* Syllabification: im‧pos‧tor

### Noun

impostor m pers
* (dated) impostor (someone who uses a false identity)
    Hypernym: oszust

#### Declension
### Further reading

* impostor in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Portuguese
### Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostōrem.

### Pronunciation

* (Brazil) IPA: /ĩ.posˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.posˈtoh]
* (Brazil) IPA: /ĩ.posˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.posˈtoh]
** (São Paulo) IPA: /ĩ.posˈtoɾ/
** (Rio de Janeiro) IPA: /ĩ.poʃˈtoʁ/ [ĩ.poʃˈtoχ]
** (Southern Brazil) IPA: /ĩ.posˈtoɻ/
* (Portugal) IPA: /ĩ.puʃˈtoɾ/
* (Portugal) IPA: /ĩ.puʃˈtoɾ/
** (Southern Portugal) IPA: /ĩ.puʃˈto.ɾi/
* Hyphenation: im‧pos‧tor

### Noun

impostor m (plural impostores, feminine impostora, feminine plural impostoras)
* impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

#### Related terms

* impor
* imposto

### Further reading

* “impostor”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French imposteur.

### Noun

impostor m (plural impostori)
* impostor

#### Declension
## Spanish
### Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin impostor. Cognate with English impostor.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /imposˈtoɾ/ [ĩm.posˈt̪oɾ]
* Rhymes: -oɾ
* Syllabification: im‧pos‧tor

### Noun

impostor m (plural impostores, feminine impostora, feminine plural impostoras)
* impostor (someone who uses a false identity)

#### Related terms

* imponer
* impuesto

### Further reading

* “impostor”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10