imposture

American  

[im-pos-cher] / ɪmˈpɒs tʃər /

noun

1. the action or practice of imposing fraudulently upon others.

2. deception using an assumed character, identity, or name, as by an impostor.

3. an instance or piece of fraudulent imposition.

   Synonyms:

   cheat, humbug, deception, swindle, hoax, fraud

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imposture British  

/ ɪmˈpɒstrəs, ɪmˈpɒstərəs, ɪmˈpɒstʃə /

noun

1. the act or an instance of deceiving others, esp by assuming a false identity

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Other Word Forms

• impostrous adjective
• imposturous adjective

Etymology

Origin of imposture

1530–40; < Late Latin impostūra, equivalent to Latin impost ( us ) past participle of impōnere ( see impostor, impone) + -ūra -ure

Explanation

Imposture is the act of pretending to be someone else. Everyone knows the Elvis impersonator isn’t really Elvis himself, but your imposture as Elvis’s long-lost daughter might actually fool some people. Imposture comes from the verb, to impose, and it has the sense of deliberately deceiving someone. Someone who perpetrates an imposture is an imposter. If you go to a job interview and pretend that you graduated from Harvard when really you never even went to college, that is an act of imposture. If the interviewer finds out, she might disgustedly say to you, “Get out, you imposter!”

Example Sentences

Moreover, according to many people who know him, Mallory has a history of imposture, and of duping people with false stories about disease and death.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 4, 2019

If you’re really attached to Picabia’s great Dada years, you may try to justify these garish paintings as yet another imposture – as a decades-long ironic commentary on the fiction of originality.

From The Guardian • Nov. 23, 2016

Although steering clear of most details of his personal life, he does treat us to tasty morsels of inside dope, as well as his father’s lurid adventures in bankruptcy and imposture.

From Washington Post • Nov. 16, 2016

The imposture is clumsy and tentative, which Laurel blames on amnesia from the accident.

From New York Times • Feb. 7, 2014

But such imposture can never maintain its ground long.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith