plagiarism

noun

pla·gia·rism ˈplā-jə-ˌri-zəm

also -jē-ə-

: an act or instance of plagiarizing

: something plagiarized

plagiarist

ˈplā-jə-rist

also -jē-ə

noun

plagiaristic

ˌplā-jə-ˈri-stik

also -jē-ə-

adjective

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The Kidnapping Roots of Plagiarize

If schools wish to impress upon their students how serious an offense plagiarism is, they might start with an explanation of the word’s history. Plagiarize (and plagiarism) comes from the Latin plagiarius “kidnapper.” This word, derived from the Latin plaga (“a net used by hunters to catch game”), extended its meaning in Latin to include a person who stole the words, rather than the children, of another. When plagiarius first entered English in the form plagiary, it kept its original reference to kidnapping, a sense that is now quite obsolete.

Examples of plagiarism in a Sentence

The student has been accused of plagiarism.

Recent Examples on the Web Sheeran was dealing with a plagiarism lawsuit, his wife’s cancerous tumor, and the death of a close friend. —

Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 2 Nov. 2023 As generative AI systems grow, the term 'plagiarism machines’ is beginning to catch on. —

Will Bedingfield, WIRED, 4 July 2023 Add to this the fabrications and plagiarism of the writers Stephen Glass and Ruth Shalit, and The New Republic of the Peretz era can in retrospect begin to resemble, to many, a leaky, disreputable ghost barge. —

Dwight Garner, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2023 At their simplest, these programs mask plagiarism through liberal use of a thesaurus; replace enough words with synonyms and hopefully nobody will ever find the original source. —

Charles Seife, Scientific American, 28 Sep. 2023 Aside from plagiarism concerns, there is also worry about the security of data entered by students and teachers into generative AI tools. —

Madison Burinsky, ABC News, 12 Sep. 2023 But this has led to detractors who accuse him of, at best, oversimplification, or at worst, spiritual plagiarism. —

Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times, 27 Aug. 2023 In an email, a representative said there are concerns generative AI use might lead to plagiarism and derivative work, but that an outright ban on the technology could be short-sighted. —

Mario Aguilar, STAT, 15 June 2023 Turnitin, a popular resource used by schools to check for plagiarism within student assignments, searches text for signs it was generated by AI. —

Madison Burinsky, ABC News, 12 Sep. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'plagiarism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.