Crossword clues for imposture
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Imposture \Im*pos"ture\, n. [L. impostura: cf. F. imposture. See Impone.] The act or conduct of an impostor; deception practiced under a false or assumed character; fraud or imposition; cheating.
From new legends
And fill the world with follies and impostures.
--Johnson.
Syn: Cheat; fraud; trick; imposition; delusion.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"act of willfully deceiving others," 1530s, from Middle French imposture, from Late Latin impostura, from impostus (see impost).
Wiktionary
n. The act or conduct of an impostor; deception practiced under a false or assumed character; fraud or imposition; cheating.
WordNet
n. pretending to be another person [syn: impersonation]
Usage examples of "imposture".
Even here all might have gone well with him, since there was no member of that body with seacraft to penetrate his imposture.
From imposture comes contempt, from contempt hatred, from hatred homicide, which takes out the blot of dishonour.
The whole imposture would soon have been discovered if anyone had possessed a peerage, but it just happened that there was not a copy in Corfu, and the French consul, a fat blockhead, like many other consuls, knew nothing of family trees.
I replied, also in a whisper, that I would not run the risk of being posted as a liar by bolstering up an imposture.
Are the ruins and impostures and miseries and superstitions which beset the traveller abroad so precious, that he should desire to imagine them at every step in his own hemisphere?
I bet a hundred sequins that the madman will recover, and that, having the general on his side, he will reap all the advantages of his imposture.
I thought at the same time that the singular imposture of La Valeur (such was the name by which my soldier generally went) was absurd and without a motive, since it was to be known only after his death, and could not therefore prove of any advantage to him.
This expectation of theirs made them obnoxious to the imposture of all such as had both the ambition to attempt the attaining of the kingdom, and the art to deceive the people by counterfeit miracles, by hypocritical life, or by orations and doctrine plausible.
He strips Folly to the skin, displays the imposture of the creature, and is content to offer her better clothing, with the lesson Chrysale reads to Philaminte and Belise.
I suppose to approach the thing in any other way would have been useless, for it would have been constant admission of the imposture, and what an idiot, hare-brained scheme it was.
Excusing, therefore, on these considerations, those passages in the gospels which seem to bear marks of weakness in Jesus, ascribing to him what alone is consistent with the great and pure character of which the same writings furnish proofs, and to their proper authors their own trivialities and imbecilities, I think myself authorised to conclude the purity and distinction of his character, in opposition to the impostures which those authors would fix upon him.
They who accustom themselves to the impostures of the vulgar, are left to practise them—for those like you, whose higher natures demand higher pursuit, religion opens more god-like secrets.
Again, what irresistible temptations to fraudulent impostures must needs beset such a creature!
Only in discerning between the Father and the Mother would the Circular infant find problems for the exercise of its understanding - problems too often likely to be corrupted by maternal impostures with the result of shaking the child's faith in all logical conclusions.
But I agree with your little sister that this is a good one you've got going, with its impostures that become authentic, its ups and downs and flights to other worlds.