noun
- a result or product of imitating.
- the act of imitating.
- a counterfeit; copy.
- a literary composition that imitates the manner or subject of another author or work.
- Biology. mimicry.
- Psychology. the performance of an act whose stimulus is the observation of the act performed by another person.
- Sociology. the copying of patterns of activity and thought of other groups or individuals.
- Art.
- (in Aristotelian aesthetics) the representation of an object or an action as it ought to be.
- the representation of actuality in art or literature.
- Music. the repetition of a melodic phrase at a different pitch or key from the original or in a different voice part.
adjective
- designed to imitate a genuine or superior article or thing: imitation leather.
- Jewelry. noting an artificial gem no part of which is of the true gemstone.Compare assembled, synthetic(def 5).
noun
- the act, practice, or art of imitating; mimicry
- an instance or product of imitating, such as a copy of the manner of a person; impression
-
- a copy or reproduction of a genuine article; counterfeit
- (as modifier)imitation jewellery
- (in contrapuntal or polyphonic music) the repetition of a phrase or figure in one part after its appearance in another, as in a fugue
- a literary composition that adapts the style of an older work to the writer’s own purposes
c.1400, “emulation; act of copying,” from Old French imitacion, from Latin imitationem (nominative imitatio) “a copying, imitation,” from past participle stem of imitari “to copy, portray, imitate,” from PIE *im-eto-, from root *aim- “copy” (cf. Hittite himma- “imitation, substitute”). Meaning “an artificial likeness” is from c.1600. As an adjective, from 1840.