IMITATE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Imitate

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/ˈɪmətˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Imitate v. t. (past & past part. imitated; pres. part. imitating)

To follow as a pattern, model, or example; to copy or strive to copy, in acts, manners etc. "Despise wealth and imitate a dog."

To produce a semblance or likeness of, in form, character, color, qualities, conduct, manners, and the like; to counterfeit; to copy. "A place picked out by choice of best alive The Nature's work by art can imitate." "This hand appeared a shining sword to weild, And that sustained an imitated shield."

(Biol.) To resemble (another species of animal, or a plant, or inanimate object) in form, color, ornamentation, or instinctive habits, so as to derive an advantage thereby; sa, when a harmless snake imitates a venomous one in color and manner, or when an odorless insect imitates, in color, one having secretion offensive to birds.

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Etymology of 'Imitate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Imitate" Quotes from Famous Books

... I hate to be particular, and I think if a man cannot conform to the customs of the world, he is not fit to be encouraged or to live in it. I know that, if one would be agreeable to men of dignity one must study to imitate them, and I know which way they get money and places. I cannot indeed wonder that the talents requisite for a great statesman are so scarce in the world, since so many of those who possess them are every month cut off in the prime of their life at ...

— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... her pass, and the way the hats fly off. Old Huz-and-Buz came pretty near to getting lynched the first week, for playing the smarty and drawling out as they went by, 'Miss Montmorency, I believe?' to imitate the way in which the Bishop introduced himself. I guess he won't be humorous again for a considerable spell. And now, Doctor, I hope I've put the ...

— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... age of six-and-twenty-for six-and-twenty she was, though she vows she was only nineteen—in the prime and fulness of her beauty. Her forehead was vast, and her black hair waved over it with a natural ripple (that beauties of late days have tried to imitate with the help of the crimping-irons), and was confined in shining and voluminous braids at the back of a neck such as you see on the shoulders of the Louvre Venus—that delight of gods and men. Her eyes, when she lifted ...

— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the space of a minute, I have heard it imitate the woodlark, chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, and sparrow.... Their few natural notes resemble those of the nightingale, but their song is of greater compass and more varied."—Ashe, ...

— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... last words of this unique duet had died on the ear, Comical Codman on his distant perch straightened up, and, triumphantly clapping his sides like the boastful bird whose crowing he could so wonderfully imitate, raised his shrill, loud, and long-drawn kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho in a volume of sound that thrilled through the forest and sent its repeating echoes from hill to hill along the distant ...

— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

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