imitating

present participle of imitate
1
as in emulating
to use (someone or something) as the model for one's speech, mannerisms, or behavior teenage musicians who imitate whichever rock stars are hot

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of imitating One year later, Clooney, 65, is back at the Venice Film Festival for a spin in the spotlight on the opening night for a bit of life imitating art. — Chris Gardner, HollywoodReporter, 2 Sep. 2026 Slop is formulaic and impersonal, the aggregate of everything that is already imitating everything else. — Becca Rothfeld, New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2026 Cohen created the character of Ali G for Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show in 1998, playing a British suburbanite imitating urban, British Jamaican culture. — Glenn Garner, Deadline, 29 Aug. 2026 Even white people imitating Black people don’t talk like that anymore. — Alex Ritman, Variety, 28 Aug. 2026 Krasner warned potential copycats who were thinking of imitating Hughes' behavior. — Kelsie Cairns , Louis Casiano, FOXNews.com, 20 Aug. 2026 For an industry watching this unfold, the lesson is not that scarcity marketing is a clever new tactic worth imitating everywhere. — Olivia Shalhoup, Forbes.com, 18 Aug. 2026 Philip Sidney’s brackets provided a blueprint for elevated expression, and writers loved imitating him. — Literary Hub, 18 Aug. 2026 The future of flooring, countertops, and walls isn’t about imitating nature. — Better Homes & Gardens, 14 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for imitating
Verb
  • Any remote hopes of the tourists making any sort of comeback and perhaps emulating Sri Lanka, another weak side, in 2024 by winning the final Test after losing the series in England were thrown out of the window by their own board.
    — Paul Newman, New York Times, 9 Sep. 2026
  • Schofield suggested that Harry and Markle consider emulating the example set by William and Middleton.
    — Ashley Hume , Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 4 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • The White House announced Arcade on social media with a series of animations parodying Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo loading screens.
    — Lou Kesten, Fortune, 5 Sep. 2026
  • Over two months, the protesters and their supporters – most who appeared to be digitally-savvy GenZ – used Instagram and Snapchat to connect, organize, and share countless reels parodying the government.
    — Omkar Khandekar, NPR, 2 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • By copying themselves instead of cutting, retrotransposons can easily flood a genome with many iterations of themselves.
    — Jake Buehler, Quanta Magazine, 21 Sep. 2026
  • After removing the video that essentially accused Jones Road of copying YISE without outright identifying Bobbi Brown's brand, Molly Sims has posted a brief update to her Instagram Stories.
    — Marci Robin, Allure, 21 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • The human neurons suffered severe, selective damage, mimicking the cellular breakdown that causes cerebral palsy in human infants during difficult childbirths.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 17 Sep. 2026
  • Other scientists go bottom-up, mimicking in a lab what Earth’s environment might have been like billions of years ago to try to produce the complex chemistry that became biology, as Miller and Rheinstädter have done.
    — Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 15 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • No one, however, much less a dubious Spanish public who were more used to mocking than celebrating their country’s best GC rider in a generation, believed that Mas could win the race.
    — Chris Marshall-Bell, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026
  • Hansen can be cruelly mocking towards his oft-flustered but extremely professional producer Andie Bender (an astonishingly good Merritt Wever).
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Its job is to go beyond producing a serviceable picture by interpreting and reproducing content.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 16 Sep. 2026
  • Her ambition for the live show goes beyond simply reproducing the recordings.
    — Jason Phillips, USA Today, 15 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Sure, and that self-deprecation is also a fundamental principle of comedy and humor, which is a lot of what your stories are doing too.
    — Fiction Non Fiction, Literary Hub, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Give us a decade to get another lifetime to keep doing a little bit better.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 24 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • My learning is more about understanding the mechanics of performance, the how, rather than replicating the why behind human emotions.
    — Corbin Bolies, Variety, 14 Sep. 2026
  • Cunha’s strength has been in replicating some of the things that helped Murillo build his reputation in England.
    — Paul Taylor, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Imitating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/imitating. Accessed 25 Sep. 2026.

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