Imitate

How to spell imitate

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce imitate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does imitate mean?

1. verbTo copy or reproduce the behaviour, appearance, or manner of someone or something.

Imitate in a sentence

• Children often imitate the speech patterns of their parents.

• The cheaper paint tries to imitate the look of natural marble.

Where does imitate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb imitari, which meant 'to copy, to reproduce, or to portray'. That verb belongs to a small family built on a root meaning 'likeness' or 'image', and it is closely related to imago, the Latin word for 'image' or 'representation', the same source that gives us 'image' and 'imagine'. English took the form from imitatus, the past participle of imitari, and adopted it in the early 1500s with the sense of copying or modelling oneself on something. The meaning has stayed remarkably stable, covering everything from mimicking a voice to producing a deliberate copy of a style. A useful spelling reminder is that the Latin source has just a single m and a single t before the ending, so 'imitate' takes only one of each, not the double letters that writers sometimes add.

How the word is built

• imit- (from Latin imitari: to copy, mimic)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)