What's the difference between impostor and imposture?

Impostor


Definition:

  • (n.) One who imposes upon others; a person who assumes a character or title not his own, for the purpose of deception; a pretender.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If you buy your tarragon from a garden centre, beware of that rather bitter, dragonish impostor, A. dracunculoides, or Russian tarragon, which is a much less refined and tasty thing.
  • (2) But the damage was done, leading the GOP establishment to suggest that Trump had finally been unmasked as a conservative impostor.
  • (3) "He was not simply an impostor seeking to profit solely off the name and reputation of Rick Ross.
  • (4) Few in the Square Mile tire of hearing about pre-results gaffes that have included a guard routinely taking a break after parking his security van outside a customer’s store before venturing inside to collect the takings, a pattern that allowed an impostor to don a G4S uniform and make off with £14,000 from the store’s tills; and (best of all) a prisoner tricking his G4S guards into tagging his prosthetic leg, thereby allowing him to skip his curfew by detaching the limb.
  • (5) Without impostors, nationalists and bandits, without tanks and APCs, and without secret visits of the director of the CIA … UPDATE: Medvedev again warned of civil war in Ukraine after a meeting Tuesday with his counterparts from Belarus and Kazakhstan, Reuters reports: Medvedev said on Tuesday he hoped that the authorities in the Ukrainian capital have "enough brains" to prevent a further escalation of the conflict in the east of the country.
  • (6) Manchester United ended the transfer window in farce and disappointment with the deal to sign Ander Herrera having failed after the club refused to pay his €36m buyout clause, while claiming that impostors in Spain attempted to muscle in on the deal.
  • (7) Syphilis remains the great impostor and still must be considered in the differential diagnosis of unexplained liver enzyme abnormalities, even in a patient with no symptoms or signs of early syphilis.
  • (8) Another impostor fooled Afghan, British and US intelligence in 2010, pocketing thousands of dollars in cash incentives for coming to peace talks before he was revealed not to be the high-ranking Taliban official he claimed.
  • (9) Shaffer's play is discussed as an illustration of this distinction and its relation to pseudoemotionality, the impostor syndrome, and the "as if" personality.
  • (10) The previous government, under Goodluck Jonathan, conducted high-level negotiations before realising it was talking to impostors.
  • (11) Don't be duped by the ostensibly tragic finale: that dead old man was just an impostor.
  • (12) Ukip denies all knowledge, spluttering that the leafleters are fifth columnists and impostors.
  • (13) At the Paris farm show, two feminists seeking to award her a prize “for being an impostor for the so-called defence of women” were removed by Le Pen’s security team.
  • (14) Capgras syndrome is characterized by a delusion of impostors who are thought to be physically similar but psychologically distinct from the misidentified person.
  • (15) Earlier in the year there were rumours that Prince William had registered, but it was later revealed to be a mere impostor.
  • (16) However, Rosen discovered that the cigar-smoking, paint-daubing impostor was born in 1960 or 1961 and had never been in a Tarzan film.
  • (17) In Last Man Standing , he writes that he suffered from "impostor syndrome", expecting that everything he'd achieved would inevitably be taken away from him.
  • (18) Two days on, there is still confusion at Old Trafford about the involvement of the three lawyers described on deadline night as "impostors" and United feel so strongly about it they have been willing to put their position on the record.
  • (19) It was found that over an extensive range of values for the equilibrium constant of a non-ideal isodesmic generating model, only a non-ideal monomer-dimer-tetramer-octamer was a successful impostor model.
  • (20) The other advantage of having a Taliban office is that it should reduce the risk of impostors presenting themselves as Taliban negotiators.

Imposture


Definition:

  • (n.) The act or conduct of an impostor; deception practiced under a false or assumed character; fraud or imposition; cheating.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He was a reactionary only in reacting against intellectual dishonesty and imposture.
  • (2) The authors suggest that disease simulation, peregrination, and imposture are secondary behavioral manifestations of pseudologia, which is deserving of additional study.
  • (3) Feelings of imposture within the CNS role can precipitate or exacerbate low self-esteem and lead to ineffective role implementation.
  • (4) Does a legal physician-patient relationship survive the imposturing of these patients?
  • (5) Imposture in a person undergoing analysis is, however, not only a function of individual character and psychopathology; it is also a function of certain inevitable requirements of the analytic situation which constitute a "pull" for its emergence.
  • (6) This paper deals with imposturous tendencies as ubiquitous and heterogeneous.
  • (7) Three case summaries illustrate the spectrum of imposturous tendencies.
  • (8) Quackery is characterized by the promotion of false and unproven health schemes for profit and does not necessarily involve imposture, fraud, or greed.