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impersonate meaning and examples

2025-11-01

Meaning

Impersonate means to pretend to be someone else, often by copying their behavior, voice, or appearance. It can also mean to represent or act as another person, especially for entertainment, deception, or humor.

Grammar and Usage

  • Part of speech: Verb (transitive)

  • Verb forms: impersonate – impersonated – impersonating

  • Common patterns:

    • impersonate + person
    • impersonate someone’s voice/behavior/style

Examples of Usage:

  • She impersonated the teacher so well that everyone laughed.
  • The actor impersonated the president in a comedy sketch.

Common Phrases

  • impersonate a celebrity — imitate a famous person
  • impersonate an officer — illegally pretend to be a police officer
  • impersonate someone online — pretend to be someone on social media or the internet

Collocations

  • verb + impersonate: try to impersonate, manage to impersonate
  • noun + impersonate: comedian impersonating, criminal impersonating
  • adverb + impersonate: convincingly impersonate, perfectly impersonate

Examples

  1. The comedian impersonated famous politicians during the show.
  2. He was arrested for impersonating a police officer.
  3. Many scammers impersonate customer service representatives.
  4. She can impersonate her boss’s voice almost perfectly.
  5. He loves to impersonate movie characters at parties.
  6. Someone impersonated me on social media last week.
  7. The actor impersonated Elvis Presley in the musical.
  8. It’s illegal to impersonate government officials.
  • imitate
  • mimic
  • parody
  • copy
  • pose as
  • pretend to be

Antonym

  • be oneself
  • reveal one’s true identity
  • act genuinely