imitate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to follow or endeavor to follow as a model or example.
to imitate an author's style; to imitate an older brother.
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to mimic; impersonate.
The students imitated the teacher behind her back.
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to make a copy of; reproduce closely.
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to have or assume the appearance of; simulate; resemble.
verb
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to try to follow the manner, style, character, etc, of or take as a model
many writers imitated the language of Shakespeare
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to pretend to be or to impersonate, esp for humour; mimic
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to make a copy or reproduction of; duplicate; counterfeit
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to make or be like; resemble or simulate
her achievements in politics imitated her earlier successes in business
Synonym Usage
Imitate, copy, duplicate, reproduce all mean to follow or try to follow an example or pattern. Imitate is the general word for the idea: to imitate someone's handwriting, behavior. To copy is to make a fairly exact imitation of an original creation: to copy a sentence, a dress, a picture. To duplicate is to produce something that exactly resembles or corresponds to something else; both may be originals: to duplicate the terms of two contracts. To reproduce is to make a likeness or reconstruction of an original: to reproduce a 16th-century theater.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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imitabilitynoun
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imitatornoun
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overimitateverb (used with object)
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preimitateverb (used with object)
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imitableadjective
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nonimitatingadjective
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unimitatedadjective
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unimitatingadjective
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well-imitatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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imitatesimple
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imitatessimple
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have imitatedperfect
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has imitatedperfect
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am imitatingprogressive
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are imitatingprogressive
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is imitatingprogressive
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have been imitatingperfect progressive
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has been imitatingperfect progressive
Past
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imitatedsimple
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had imitatedperfect
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was imitatingprogressive
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were imitatingprogressive
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had been imitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of imitate
First recorded in 1525–35; from Latin imitātus, past participle of imitārī “to copy,” presumably a frequentative akin to the base of imāgō image
Explanation
When you imitate someone, you copy them. Youth marketers capitalize on kids' desire to imitate––tweens imitate teens, teens imitate young adults, and marketers supply the product lines to make it easy. Humans learn by imitating others. Babies carefully watch their caregivers' lips, learning to imitate the movements they make to create language sounds. Writers often begin their careers imitating the style of older writers they admire.
Vocabulary lists containing imitate
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The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Am I supposed to watch myself and imitate myself?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
"I was trying to imitate players - like you do when you're a kid. Now I'm here winning matches. It's awesome."
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Parrots are famous for their ability to imitate human speech, but could they also be using names the way people do?
From Science Daily ● Jun. 14, 2026
Spectacular celadons in forms that imitate lotuses, gourds or melons decorated with delicate inlaid and under-carved designs demonstrate peak Goryeo dynasty craftsmanship.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026
We did our best to imitate the mournful-sounding ranchera singers we’d listened to at Calaca.
From "The First Rule of Punk" by Celia C. Pérez
Yet it wisely imitates neither the structure nor tone of its noble predecessor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
We’ll all find out together if, with the original stock market superstition, life actually imitates art.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
Instead of copying part of a virus or bacterium, this new vaccine imitates the communication signals immune cells exchange during infection.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 23, 2026
Michael Bay said last year the tech "will create a whole bunch of lazy people" because "it doesn't create, it just imitates".
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2024
In some of his portraits he imitates the Japanese style he loves: framing the head in surprising ways, using strong colors.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
Often imitated, never duplicated, a ring from Spinelli Kilcollin is both classic and subversive enough to be interesting for decades to come.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
Perhaps it is because he treated the Shingle Style not as a historic revival, whose forms he faithfully imitated, but as a living language.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
Guardiola is seen as changing the face of English football with a style of play that has been imitated by other managers across the country.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
Although examples exist in the United States, the architectural design originated in ancient Rome and was broadly imitated in later European monuments.
From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2025
Or I imitated Otis tapping his pointy-toed boots and playing for all the animals, and that always made her laugh.
From "Because of Winn-Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo
The second is that a machine can demonstrate intelligence by successfully imitating a human in conversation, an idea that later became known as the Turing test.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 14, 2026
“But underneath it, there’s something deeper about identity, performance, and our very human fears around AI. And yes, art will most definitely be imitating life.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
The song would only become even more synonymous with the president in 2022, when his hokey dance often done to the classic became so viral that athletes around the world began imitating it.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
He suggested imitating Europe’s generous wage replacement programs and job protections.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
As a sort of test, he had agreed to set up a cage with a few pairs of the rodents, imitating on a reduced scale the enterprise under consideration.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
