imposture

American  

[im-pos-cher] / ɪmˈpɒs tʃər /

noun

1. the action or practice of imposing fraudulently upon others.

2. deception using an assumed character, identity, or name, as by an impostor.

3. an instance or piece of fraudulent imposition.

   Synonyms:

   cheat, humbug, deception, swindle, hoax, fraud

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imposture British  

/ ɪmˈpɒstrəs, ɪmˈpɒstərəs, ɪmˈpɒstʃə /

noun

1. the act or an instance of deceiving others, esp by assuming a false identity

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Other Word Forms

• impostrous adjective
• imposturous adjective

Etymology

Origin of imposture

1530–40; < Late Latin impostūra, equivalent to Latin impost ( us ) past participle of impōnere ( impostor, impone ) + -ūra -ure

Example Sentences

That view has not changed — but in empty Rome, still reeling from a year’s cultural deprivation, I felt myself oddly moved by this catastrophic imposture, and the hopelessness of Hirst’s Roman holiday.

From New York Times • Jun. 25, 2021

Still, excess hardly matters when there’s so much to enjoy and learn from in this encyclopedic anatomy of American imposture and chicanery.

From Washington Post • Nov. 28, 2017

If you’re really attached to Picabia’s great Dada years, you may try to justify these garish paintings as yet another imposture – as a decades-long ironic commentary on the fiction of originality.

From The Guardian • Nov. 23, 2016

A more recent imposture, which is still having harmful effects, is the vaccine scare that began in 1998.

From The New Yorker • Jan. 25, 2016

I schooled myself to face forward with greater looks of despond, that we might not be detected in our imposture.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson