as in to play
to pretend to be (what one is not) in appearance or behavior
likes to personate the man of the world, but he's still the small-town hick that he always was
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of personate
Till’s motifs swept though the ensemble, as horns, clarinets, bassoons, violin all had a chance to personate the character.
—
By Libby Hanssen, kansascity.com, 3 June 2017
By Libby Hanssen, kansascity.com, 3 June 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for personate
Verb
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Students were required to undertake certain extracurricular activities (Prevost was in the choir with Franks—both sing tenor—and played tennis) and to keep up their academic performance, but mostly the school’s focus was how to live in community.—
Belinda Luscombe,
Time,
1 July 2025
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Pitcher of the Year: Taylor McKean, Aledo Aledo senior Taylor McKean, a Tarleton Softball pledge, was one of the best pitchers in Dallas-Fort Worth and played a pivotal role in another strong season for the Bearcats.—
Charles Baggarly,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
1 July 2025
Verb
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Why the latest PayPal phishing scam is so convincing Most phishing scams try (and fail) to impersonate big companies.—
Kurt Knutsson,
FOXNews.com,
28 June 2025
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That’s because Scattered Spider has also been known to send fake SMS text messages impersonating login systems to phish employees.—
Michael Kan,
PC Magazine,
27 June 2025
Verb
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His celebration imitated him sitting down playing a video game – a tribute to his former Portugal teammate Diogo Jota who died in a car crash last week.—
Ben Morse,
CNN Money,
10 July 2025
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And beyond device checks, smart verification systems can also monitor behavioral signals—like typing speed, location, or login habits—to spot anomalies that a cloned voice can’t imitate.—
Sharon Goldman,
Fortune,
10 July 2025
Verb
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And of course, that following Sunday, Oliver did indeed mock his corporate bosses for the move.—
Michael Schneider,
Variety,
8 July 2025
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Many wanted Tiger to comment, but others chose to mock Williams.—
Devlina Sarkar,
MSNBC Newsweek,
5 July 2025
Verb
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The latter has portrayed The Waitress — the object of Day's character Charlie Kelly's obsessive, unrequited love — in 37 episodes across 16 seasons of the long-running FX series.—
Erin Clack,
People.com,
6 July 2025
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Kenneth Colley, the British actor who appeared in seven features for director Ken Russell and portrayed the Darth Vader underling Admiral Piett in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has died.—
Mike Barnes,
HollywoodReporter,
4 July 2025
Verb
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Yet court documents show White has only faced minor firearms charges in the shooting, and that Fremont police have investigated whether White acted in self-defense.—
Jakob Rodgers,
Mercury News,
11 July 2025
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Advertisement This version of Krypto was especially cartoonish, having a full internal dialog via thought bubbles rather than acting like a normal dog that could fly.—
James Grebey,
Time,
10 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Personate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/personate. Accessed 14 Jul. 2025.
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