1
as in to imitate
to pretend to be (what one is not) in appearance or behavior a school intruder was caught trying to impersonate a teacher

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2
as in to portray
to present a portrayal or performance of interpreters at the living history museum impersonate figures who are known to have actually lived in the colonial town

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of impersonate With or without bone spurs, Trump can’t keep impersonating a warrior while calling himself the President of PEACE. Andreas Kluth, Twin Cities, 11 Sep. 2025 Digital risk protection company BrandShield said its research had discovered a global scam network selling fake GLP-1 weight loss drugs and other treatments by impersonating both real doctors and healthcare groups such as the American Diabetes Association and the Mayo Clinic. Amy Feldman, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025 In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, the Israeli Russian diamond tycoon filed suit against him for allegedly impersonating them and unjustly enriching himself using their last name. Kelsie Gibson, People.com, 10 Sep. 2025 The bots would impersonate beneficiaries, using dates of birth and other information that can be found on the internet, to try to change the beneficiaries’ bank-routing information and steal their benefits. Eli Hager, ProPublica, 8 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for impersonate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for impersonate
Verb
  • Later in the game, when officials did call a travel on Atlanta, Clark was seen imitating the gesture again, playfully.
    Jackson Thompson, FOXNews.com, 17 Sep. 2025
  • Student imitates Charlie Kirk's death and mocks him, goes up to statue where TPUSA members are and imitates his death again, and spits near them.
    Nick Mordowanec, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • The uniformly white Norman aggressors are portrayed as proto-colonialists.
    Will Collins, The Washington Examiner, 19 Sep. 2025
  • However, his attorney, Christopher Frost, issued a statement via a spokesperson, portraying his client as the unwitting mark of both Mauriss and Robinson—a characterization both of those men would strongly dispute.
    Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 18 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • Many on the right have reacted strongly to those perceived to be celebrating or mocking Kirk's death, calling for consequences such as losing their jobs or in Omar's case, being censured.
    Alia Shoaib, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Comedy Central responded to Kirk’s killing by pulling the episode mocking him from its regular rotation.
    Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, 17 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • Almost two full years later, on the verge of making the postseason, the Padres returned to the ballpark that is home to one of baseball’s worst teams and continued to play like a team that seems bent on disappointing in its own spectacular way.
    Kevin Acee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Sep. 2025
  • Yet, Ruud just kept right on playing good defense — racing around Laver Cup’s black hardcourt — and somehow managing to return serves that reached 130 mph.
    Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 20 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • Till’s motifs swept though the ensemble, as horns, clarinets, bassoons, violin all had a chance to personate the character.
    BY LIBBY HANSSEN, kansascity.com, 3 June 2017
Verb
  • This is when your liver is so scarred up that there’s barely enough normal tissue to perform the routine functions of the liver.
    Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025
  • Scientists performed dental exams and took blood samples — participants also filled out dietary questionnaires.
    Sandee LaMotte, CNN Money, 15 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • The photo, informally titled The Scourged Back and depicting an escaped slave believed to have been named Peter Gordon, has been in wide circulation since the nineteeth century and is evocative of the horrors and injustice of slavery.
    News Desk, Artforum, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Some of them are from other dimensions, some of them depict earlier, less experienced versions of a character.
    Rob Wieland, Forbes.com, 17 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • The attorney general faced immense backlash from the left and the right over her comments, prompting her to clarify the remarks, which were widely interpreted as calling for unlawful prosecutions, on Tuesday morning.
    Jack Birle, The Washington Examiner, 17 Sep. 2025
  • To interpret the results, the team will develop computer algorithms that decode which neurons are firing and what that activity means.
    Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 17 Sep. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Impersonate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/impersonate. Accessed 21 Sep. 2025.

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