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IMITATION
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Copying (or trying to copy) the actions of someone else
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("imitation" is a kind of...):
copying (an act of copying)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imitation"):
echo (an imitation or repetition)
emulation (effort to equal or surpass another)
mimicry (the resemblance of an animal species to another species or to natural objects; provides concealment and protection from predators)
Derivation:
imitate (reproduce someone's behavior or looks)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Something copied or derived from an original
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("imitation" is a kind of...):
copy (a thing made to be similar or identical to another thing)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imitation"):
fake; postiche; sham (something that is a counterfeit; not what it seems to be)
counterfeit; forgery (a copy that is represented as the original)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The doctrine that representations of nature or human behavior should be accurate imitations
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("imitation" is a kind of...):
doctrine; ism; philosophical system; philosophy; school of thought (a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imitation"):
mimesis (the imitative representation of nature and human behavior in art and literature)
Antonym:
formalism (the doctrine that formal structure rather than content is what should be represented)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A representation of a person that is exaggerated for comic effect
Synonyms:
caricature; imitation; impersonation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("imitation" is a kind of...):
humor; humour; wit; witticism; wittiness (a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imitation"):
mock-heroic (a satirical imitation of heroic verse)
burlesque; lampoon; mockery; parody; pasquinade; put-on; send-up; sendup; spoof; takeoff; travesty (a composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style, usually in a humorous way)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not genuine or real; being an imitation of the genuine article
Example:
a purse of simulated alligator hide
Synonyms:
fake; false; faux; imitation; simulated
Classified under:
Similar:
artificial; unreal (contrived by art rather than nature)
Context examples:
She sometimes kept a diary—you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of you—and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The prince's court, too, with its swarm of noble barons and wealthy knights, many of whom, in imitation of their master, had brought their ladies and their children from England, all helped to swell the coffers of the burghers.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But she had not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet's habits of dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, they would both be soon after her.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a sea-officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his face and a capital imitation of a sailor's walk.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He desired I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could; because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for so he conjectured of other monarchs, by my former discourses), he should be glad to hear of any thing that might deserve imitation.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw, and Laurie's voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, "I will be good, oh, I will be good!"
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the interval of waiting appeared very long.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing: his conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
I answered in a faint voice, that death would have been too great a happiness; that although I could not blame the assembly’s exhortation, or the urgency of his friends; yet, in my weak and corrupt judgment, I thought it might consist with reason to have been less rigorous; that I could not swim a league, and probably the nearest land to theirs might be distant above a hundred: that many materials, necessary for making a small vessel to carry me off, were wholly wanting in this country; which, however, I would attempt, in obedience and gratitude to his honour, although I concluded the thing to be impossible, and therefore looked on myself as already devoted to destruction; that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils; for, supposing I should escape with life by some strange adventure, how could I think with temper of passing my days among Yahoos, and relapsing into my old corruptions, for want of examples to lead and keep me within the paths of virtue? that I knew too well upon what solid reasons all the determinations of the wise Houyhnhnms were founded, not to be shaken by arguments of mine, a miserable Yahoo; and therefore, after presenting him with my humble thanks for the offer of his servants’ assistance in making a vessel, and desiring a reasonable time for so difficult a work, I told him I would endeavour to preserve a wretched being; and if ever I returned to England, was not without hopes of being useful to my own species, by celebrating the praises of the renowned Houyhnhnms, and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
