plagiarize

verb

pla·gia·rize ˈplā-jə-ˌrīz

also -jē-ə-

plagiarized; plagiarizing

: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

intransitive verb

: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

plagiarizer noun

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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.

Example Sentences

He plagiarized a classmate's report. She plagiarized from an article she read on the Internet.

Recent Examples on the Web The popular program has been under heavy scrutiny in recent months in the education world, as educators argue students could use it to cheat or plagiarize in school. —

Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY, 22 Feb. 2023 OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool, which the startup released in November, has been known to plagiarize or only lightly rework the writing of humans. —

WIRED, 11 Feb. 2023 Since ChatGPT debuted in November, the nation's largest school districts have banned the artificial intelligence chatbot, concerned students will use the speedy text generator to cheat or plagiarize. —

Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY, 31 Jan. 2023 However, only plagiarism is a problem: if a college writing service does not plagiarize the final product, there is no problem. —

Ocasio Media, The Salt Lake Tribune, 22 Dec. 2022 Teachers have already caught their students using the bot to plagiarize essays. —

Brian X. Chen, New York Times, 21 Dec. 2022 Second, the church cast itself as the victim of fault-finders who dared to imagine that an apostle who had served as a university president should not plagiarize the writings of others. —

The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Oct. 2022 Hedwig and the Angry Inch began as an off-Broadway play in 1998 about a genderqueer East German rock singer who develops a relationship with a younger man, Tommy (Pitt), only to have Tommy plagiarize her songs. —

Kara Warner, PEOPLE.com, 13 Aug. 2021 Fake sites plagiarize all their content, or have no content at all. —

Dr. Augustine Fou, Forbes, 18 Apr. 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'plagiarize.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.