impostor

C2+ Topic:People & Society

Also spelled imposter

US /ɪmˈpɑstɚ/ UK /ɪmˈpɒstə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a person who deceives others by pretending to be someone else

The impostor passed himself off as a doctor for nearly a year.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a person who deceives... fraud charlatan pretender impersonator fake quack

Word family

Forms imposters

Derived forms impostorismimpostorship

Related forms imposture impose imposition

Etymology

From Middle French imposteur, from Late Latin impostor, contraction of impositor ('deceiver'), from imponere ('to impose upon, deceive'), from in- ('on') + ponere ('to put').

impostor Latin ponere Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# impostor

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ɪmˈpɑstɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /ɪmˈpɒstə/

## Meanings
1. a person who deceives others by pretending to be someone else

## Examples
- The impostor passed himself off as a doctor for nearly a year.

## Synonyms
- fraud
- charlatan
- pretender
- impersonator
- fake
- quack

## Derived Forms
- impostorism
- impostorship

## Related Forms
- imposture
- impose
- imposition

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: impostor
- Root: ponere - to put

## Etymology
From Middle French imposteur, from Late Latin impostor, contraction of impositor ('deceiver'), from imponere ('to impose upon, deceive'), from in- ('on') + ponere ('to put').

## AI Etymology
impostor comes from Middle French imposteur, from Late Latin impostor, contraction of impositor ('deceiver'), from imponere ('to impose upon, deceive'), from in- ('on') + ponere ('to put'). Morphologically, the prefixed shape matters: the initial element belongs to the recorded formation and helps explain the modern form's surface analysis. In present English, the noun sense is "a person who deceives others by pretending to be someone else", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as imposture, impose, and imposition, and in derivatives such as impostorism and impostorship. Its semantic neighborhood includes fraud, charlatan, pretender, and impersonator, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Latin impostor and Latin ponere.

## Topics
- People & Society
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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