Trivia Time

The word plagiarism comes from a Latin word meaning what?

Test Your Knowledge

plagiarism

American  

[pley-juh-riz-uhm, -jee-uh-riz-] / ˈpleɪ dʒəˌrɪz əm, -dʒi əˌrɪz- /

noun

plagiarisms plural

1. an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author.

   It is said that he plagiarized Thoreau's plagiarism of a line written by Montaigne.

   Synonyms:

   cribbing, borrowing, theft, piracy, infringement, appropriation

2. a piece of writing or other work reflecting such unauthorized use or imitation.

   “These two manuscripts are clearly plagiarisms,” the editor said, tossing them angrily on the floor.

---

plagiarism British  

/ ˈpleɪdʒəˌrɪzəm /

noun

1. the act of plagiarizing

2. something plagiarized

---

plagiarism Cultural  

1. Literary theft. Plagiarism occurs when a writer duplicates another writer's language or ideas and then calls the work his or her own. Copyright laws protect writers' words as their legal property. To avoid the charge of plagiarism, writers take care to credit those from whom they borrow and quote.

---

Discover More

Similar theft in music or other arts is also called plagiarism.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• plagiarist
  noun
• plagiaristic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• plagiarisms
  plural

Etymology

Origin of plagiarism

First recorded in 1615–25; plagiar(y) + -ism

Explanation

When you rip off someone else's ideas or work and pretend it's your own, that's plagiarism. There's a fine line between borrowing and stealing — between plagiarism and theft — and it's often open to debate what actually constitutes an outright taking of someone's material. As Einstein once said, "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." From the Latin word for "kidnapped," when you plagiarize, you are being an intellectual thief, kidnapping someone else's ideas or words for your own purposes.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plagiarism plagiarisms

Instead, the so-called autopsy was a shambolic train wreck of missing paragraphs, factual errors, and apparent plagiarism.

From Slate ● May 23, 2026

And so had Johnson, a 38-year-old former journalist who turned to social media after being embroiled in plagiarism scandals at BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review.

From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2026

The fiasco brought additional scrutiny to Ms. Gay, whose scant scholarly record invited credible accusations of plagiarism.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

When the public hears about scientific fraud, the focus often falls on isolated cases involving falsified data, plagiarism or retracted studies.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 7, 2026

Surely the similarities were inadvertent, he suggested, since Jackson was obviously a virtuous man and thus incapable of plagiarism.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

That a lot of these supposed plagiarisms were things in speeches, or I guess also in books.

From Slate ● Nov. 12, 2013

I doubt that a single person could track down all the plagiarisms in QR Markham's spy novel Assassin of Secrets; but a group certainly could and did, and with remarkable speed.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 3, 2012

Dickens' novels are hardly less theatrical, as his contemporaries realized to their quick profit: several stage plagiarisms of Nicholas Nickleby were on the London boards before the novel's serial publication was complete.

From Time Magazine Archive

Mrs. Sheridan, who has read the book, finds it a display of sentimentality, abounding in super-adjectives, containing many plagiarisms, "the outpourings of a gushing school girl."

From Time Magazine Archive

Porphyry shows us Longinus at a supper where the plagiarisms of Greek writers are discussed—a topic dear to trivial or spiteful mediocrity.

From On the Sublime by Havell, H. L. (Herbert Lord)

Related Words

• falsification
• infringement
• piracy