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
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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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:
Another said Louis Vuitton is justified in defending its intellectual property and that other brands do not have the right to imitate it, regardless of their industry.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
These electronically damped wheeled selectors offer three axes of input, using microtorque feedback to imitate the bump and tug of physical detents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
"With less than ten seconds of someone's voice, you can imitate anyone, often for free," chief executive Florent Van Calster told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 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
I try to imitate it, turning my wrists in the air.
From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz
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
In the best light, the new strategy imitates Theodore Roosevelt’s effort to take advantage of America’s rising influence and mediate balances of power in East Asia and Europe while dominating North America and the Caribbean.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2025
While AI-generated music is rife online, it's often released under fictitious names, or imitates big stars, but it doesn't normally appear on their official streaming pages.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2025
Nico imitates his cousin’s moves and looks so ridiculous when he does a little spin that I burst out laughing.
From "Amina's Song" by Hena Khan
The fakes imitated brands like Bvlgari, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co, and generated an estimated $1.14m in illicit profits for the counterfeit syndicate.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
Life imitated art when, in 2019, Van Der Beek fulfilled the prophecy foretold by a “Don’t Trust the B—” storyline and became a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2026
Ms. Greene is, in every sense, a singular politician, mercifully neither imitated nor imitable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 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
Vonetta looked more like Frankenstein than a flower girl, limping and lugging her white-casted arm while Fern imitated her so there would be two Frankenstein flower girls.
From "Gone Crazy in Alabama" by Rita Williams-Garcia
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
“No, no, no, please, president,” Trump said in a mocking tone imitating her voice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
Omakayas planned out a flower and began immediately, imitating Mama, to sew the beads into the design.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
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.
