imitate

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Latin imitātus, the past participle of imitor (“to copy, portray”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} while Barnhart explains it as a back-formation from imitation or imitator,^[7] and Etymonline gives both explanations.^[8] The Latin verb is related to imāgō (“image”),^[4][5][7][9] and Hoad and Ayto connect it also with aemulor (“to rival”), the source of emulate;^[9][10] Ayto takes all three from one Latin base, with the basic meaning "likeness".^[10] Barnhart traces it, probably, to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *ai-m-.^[7][11] Skeat took the Latin verb as a frequentative of an unrecorded verb.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To do something after the manner of another; to follow the example of: 1534, in Sir Thomas More's Treatise upon the Passion.^[2][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, following another's example in action, was soon joined by that of copying or reproducing a thing (1590, in Spenser) and of becoming like something or assuming its look (1598, in Shakespeare).^[2] From 1613 it could imply mockery or deceit, to mimic or counterfeit.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as to copy or endeavour to resemble, and recorded a literary sense, writing a work on the model of an earlier one, which the OED dates from Dryden in 1700.^[13][2] From 1626 it was also used with an infinitive for "to try to do something", obsolete except in dialect;^[2] the English Dialect Dictionary records the verb in several southern and Midland counties in the senses "to resemble, match" and "to attempt".^[14] A noun imitate, an imitation, was used in 1669.^[2]

Timeline

• 1534 – to follow the example of, copy in action.^[2][7][3]
• 1590 – to make a copy or representation of.^[2]
• 1598 – to become like; to simulate.^[2]
• 1613 – to mimic, counterfeit.^[2]
• 1626 – with an infinitive, to try to do something (obsolete except in dialect).^[2]
• 1700 – to model a literary work on an earlier one.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take someone as a model and follow their manner, style or behaviour: Young painters often imitate their teachers.^[15][3][2]
2. To mimic or impersonate, especially for humour: She could imitate the headmaster's voice perfectly.^[15][2]
3. To make a copy of; to reproduce or counterfeit.^[15][3][2]
4. To look like or simulate: The tiles are made to imitate marble.^[15][3][2]

Word family

• imitator
• unimitated
• overimitate
• unimitating

Related words

• imitation
• imitative
• imitable
• image
• emulate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins