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Imitation   Listen
noun
Imitation  n.  
1.
The act of imitating. "Poesy is an art of imitation,... that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth."
2.
That which is made or produced as a copy; that which is made to resemble something else, whether for laudable or for fraudulent purposes; likeness; resemblance. "Both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature."
3.
(Mus.) One of the principal means of securing unity and consistency in polyphonic composition; the repetition of essentially the same melodic theme, phrase, or motive, on different degrees of pitch, by one or more of the other parts of voises. Cf. Canon.
4.
(Biol.) The act of condition of imitating another species of animal, or a plant, or unanimate object. See Imitate, v. t., 3. Note: Imitation is often used adjectively to characterize things which have a deceptive appearance, simulating the qualities of a superior article; opposed to real or genuine; as, imitation lace; imitation bronze; imitation modesty, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Imitation" Quotes from Famous Books



... him with silent joy, and he would willingly have retired into his cave and have indulged, not for the first time, in the ecstatic pain of hanging on the cross, and bleeding from five wounds, in imitation of the Saviour. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... but it is also true that it preserves at least an affectation of higher civilization. It contains the majority of the gentlemen and ladies by birth and education in each city, and they go far to leaven the whole lump. The parvenu has the merit of seeking after better things, and his imitation of aristocracy, if it necessarily falls far short of the mark, at least removes him a step or two above the way of thinking common to the class he sprang from. His daughters, with that superior adaptability inherent in women, are quick to catch the manners of the ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... nothing of the matter" Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy Defend most the defects with which we are most tainted Defer my revenge to another and better time Deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation Delivered into our own custody the keys of life Denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind Depend as much upon fortune as anything else we do Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need Desire of ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... prostrate; Salmoneus, also, who presumed to vie with Jupiter, and built a bridge of brass over which he drove his chariot that the sound might resemble thunder, launching flaming brands at his people in imitation of lightning, till Jupiter struck him with a real thunderbolt, and taught him the difference between mortal weapons and divine. Here, also, is Tityus, the giant, whose form is so immense that as he lies, he stretches over nine acres, while a vulture preys upon his liver, which ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says herself she didn't learn it ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... between the draught on a really good McAdamized road and on a railroad. We have a few roads in America that are nearly as good as most one meets with, but we have nothing that deserves to be termed a real imitation of the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Mr. LENNOX PAWLE amused with his plump dundrearyed mayor; Mr. SAM LIVESEY'S offensive was, I am sure, as Hunnish as its author could possibly have desired. Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS appeared in the first Act as a very plausible imitation of a prominent tradesman's wife in an eighth-rate provincial town, with some quite excellent moments. But she was evidently labouring under severe strain, and I amused myself by speculating how long she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various

... evening he made the acquaintance of Kunz, a bookseller, publisher, and wine-dealer, at the pleasure-resort of Bug (close to Bamberg) in a characteristic manner. Kunz, an honest, jovial, good-natured giant, not lacking humour and gifted with a remarkable talent for mimicry and imitation, became little Hoffmann's fast friend—nay, his only real friend—during the whole of the time the latter remained in Bamberg. They were almost inseparable, associated in all amusements and diversions: they spent many long winter evenings together in pouring out their hearts and experiences to ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... asked you to quit the Ikagins because Ikagin begged of me to have you leave there as you were too tough, and I believed him. But I heard afterward that Ikagin is a crook and often passes imitation of famous drawings for originals. I think what he told me about you must be a lie. He tried to sell pictures and curios to you, but as you shook him off, he told some false stories on you. I did very wrong by you because I did not know his character, and wish you would forgive ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... lay back of these four hundred children, who shaped their world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, their families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general characteristics; four hundred American families who were, on the whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were quite ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... English throne—even in these possibly disfigured versions, the fiery pathos of passion, the fierce and piteous fluctuations of spirit between love and hate, hope and rage and jealousy, have an eloquence apparently beyond the imitation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... from his malice and insatiable avarice,—a rebellion which arose from his abominable tyranny, from his lust of arbitrary power, and from his determination to follow the examples of Sujah Dowlah, Asoph ul Dowlah, Cossim Ali Khan, Aliverdy Khan, and all the gang of rebels who are the objects of his imitation. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the first object that attracted our attention was one of the huge earthworks of the enemy, with large logs placed in the embrasures, the ends pointing toward us, and painted black in imitation of cannon. The earthworks seemed very imperfectly constructed, and from this fact, and the counterfeit guns which surmounted them, it was evident that no fight had been seriously counted on by the absconding forces. The substantial character of their barracks, bake-ovens, stables, and ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... in what appeared to be an imitation of an Indian war dance, now and again darting in and delivering a telling blow with the club held firmly in both hands, landing it on whatever part of the animal's anatomy he could most easily reach. The beast was snapping ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... and the Juniors with the latter class. The result is generally in favor of the Sophomores. College poets and prose-writers have often chosen the game of football as a topic on which to exercise their descriptive powers. One invokes his muse, in imitation of a great poet, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... external nature, to the wonders of the physical world—his interest in them as diversified and fresh, his impressions as sharp and distinct, his rendering of them as free and true and forcible, as little weakened or confused by imitation or by conventional words, his language as elastic and as completely under his command, his choice of poetic materials as unrestricted and original, as if he had been born in days which claim as their own such freedom and such keen discriminative sense of what ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... of joy, the gestures of delight, and the envious exclamations over the trifles distributed amongst the ladies of the court, and fierce were the struggles for the smallest shreds of the imitation gold lace given away. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... a pair of "bones," such as negro minstrels use, held in her hands above her head. But, more singular still, a few paces before her a large goat, with its neck roughly wreathed with flowers and vines, was taking ungainly bounds and leaps in imitation of its companion. The wild background of the Sierras, the pastoral hollow, the incongruousness of the figures, and the vivid color of the girl's red flannel petticoat showing beneath her calico skirt, that had been pinned around her waist, made a striking picture, which ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... knives! Poor Cecile, examined by Committee, declares she "wanted to see what a tyrant was like:" the change of raiment was "for my own use in the place I am surely going to."—"What place?"—"Prison; and then the Guillotine," answered she.—Such things come of Charlotte Corday; in a people prone to imitation, and monomania! Swart choleric men try Charlotte's feat, and their pistols miss fire; soft blooming young women try it, and, only half-resolute, leave their ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... most of the auditors, was too much confounded to reply. All seemed to attend anxiously for the second and more powerful blast, which was to complete the imitation of the stranger's summons. It was not necessary to wait long; for in a time as near as might be, to that which had intervened between the two first peals of the horn followed another, and in a note so true, again, as to give it the semblance ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... become one of the most learned and sagacious of monkeys. He said that it reminded him very much of Don Diogo, and so he and Jack amused themselves by rigging him out in a dress similar to that in which they had seen the old Don appear. The imitation was so good that the moment Queerface sprang up on deck the likeness was recognised by all who saw him. When Adair went away in boats he usually took Queerface with him to afford amusement to his ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... practice. Quite unsuccessfully, however. Indeed, the architecture of medieval churches bear in their ornamentation numerous evidences of the failure at suppression. Of course, much of this ornamentation may have been due to mere imitation, but often enough it was deliberate. "The scholar," says Bonwick, "who gazed to-day at the roof of Temple Church, London, had the illustration before him. A symbol there, repeatedly displayed, is the popular Hindu one to express sex worship."[86] The belief ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... close-pressed lips, his chin modelled with rare perfection, his whole face, in short, like a coin of Augustus. But that which neither his bust nor his portrait could render, which was utterly beyond the domain of imitation, was the mobility of his look; that look which is to man what the lightning is to God, namely, the proof ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... however, no such system of slavish imitation prevailed. Those methods of Newton's which had been simultaneously discovered by Leibnitz were more thoroughly grasped, modified, extended, and improved. There arose a great school of French and German mathematicians, and the laurels of scientific discovery passed to France ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... among the Carthaginian troops, to go over to the other side. Statorius raised a body of infantry for the king out of the large number of young men which he found; and having formed them into companies, in close imitation of the Roman method, taught them to follow their standards and keep their ranks when being marshalled, and when performing their evolutions; and he so habituated them to military works and other military duties, that ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... vacations, as opportunity occurs, taking more and more interest in the employment, and meeting with greater and greater success. This success is owing in a very great degree to the freedom of his practice, that is, to his escape from the thraldom of imitation. So long as he leaves the great objects of the school untouched, and the great features of its organization unchanged, his many plans for accomplishing these objects in new and various ways awaken interest and spirit both ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott

... may be kept bright and clean with soap and warm water, scrubbing them well with a soft nail brush. They may be dried in sawdust of box-wood. Imitation jewelry may be treated ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... not like the looks of the people," she said. "They watch you too closely. And we are still in the country of Sir Alexander, a land filled with our enemies. If you were only a better imitation of a woman." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... still toleration and not liberty, and it was soon cast into the background by the full religious liberty granted by the French Revolution in 1791, in imitation of the American constitution of 1787, which entirely separated State and Church. The granting of full religious liberty to the Jews had previously been advocated by Mirabeau, and though Rousseau's influence, which was all-important ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... baby to finish nursing. And every little while, from the big blowhole or nostril on top of her head she would 'spout,' or send up a spray-like jet of steamy breath. And every little while, too, the big-headed baby under her flipper would send up a baby spout, as if in imitation of his mother. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... children on the beach, I may take a kodak picture of the same group. My photograph may be a better likeness than Sorolla's picture, but it has no art-value. Why? Because it was made mechanically, whereas Sorolla put into his picture something of himself, making it a unique thing, incapable of imitation or of reproduction. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... therefore, accept my homage as the philosopher that you are and my assurance of that high esteem indicated by my faithful imitation ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... the spider, the frog, and the fly. Strange freak of nature this, in a lower order of creation, to mimic her own handyworks in a higher!—to mimic even our human mimicry!—for that which is called the man orchis is most like the imitation of a human figure that a child might cut from colored paper. Strange, strange mimicry! but full of variety, full of beauty, full of odor. Of all the fragrant blossoms that haunt the woods, I know none so exquisite ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... at the meaning from the mere tone of the question, as well as from Guy's instinctive and graphic imitation of the act of writing, pulled out from his waistband the last relics of a very brown and tattered fragment of paper, on which were still legible in pencil the half-obliterated words: "My dear Granville,—I ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... first day of May the Romans offered sacrifices to Maia, the mother of Mercury. Apollo was the tutelar deity of this month. This day is observed with mirth, in imitation of the old Roman celebration of the days when the goddess Flora was worshipped. The Roman floral games began on the 28th April, and continued a few days. At one time these celebrations were conducted with obscenity, but by degrees the amusements ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... sentiment I gave my heartiest assent, and proceeded to illustrate it by the fastidious care with which I selected and folded the clothes I wished to take. As I examined my socks for signs of wear and tear, and then folded them by the ingenious process of grasping the heels and turning them inside out, in imitation of Nurse Bundle, an idea struck me, based upon my late reading and approaching ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... mine into Scotland, were not undertaken, neither in imitation, or emulation of any man, but only devised by myself, on purpose to make trial of my friends both in this Kingdom of England, and that of Scotland, and because I would be an eye-witness of divers things which I had heard of that Country; and whereas many shallow-brained Critics, ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... humour. The Baron does appreciate it when it is genuine American humour, but when the peculiar style is only copied by a journalistic 'ARRY, with whom the stupidest and most vulgar Yankeeisms pass for the highest wit, simply because they are Yankeeisms, then for this sort of imitation the Baron has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various

... closely, and the arrivals were astonished to see a lot of Indian toggery piled up on tables and chairs, imitation buckskin suits, feathered headdresses, bows, arrows, tomahawks, and so forth. On Merriwell's table was a full supply ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... stress was laid, not on the redeeming love on which man could rest his confident assurance, but on the necessity of offering oneself to Him who had offered Himself for man, and of submitting even to the pains of death, in imitation of Him, and to pay the penalty of sin. In this way, again and again, Luther saw before him claims on the part of God which he could never hope to satisfy. His sorest trial was caused by the thought that God Himself should have the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... the third part only for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, that, in imitation of our blessed Saviour, we may sing an hymn after we have partaken of the ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... game you play, George, old man. The imitation is excellent. I was deceived entirely by it. It was only the other night that I learned that those fearful screech-owls were human. Most ingenious on your part. You ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... locale of the Rue ——, there might be seen, at the time I now treat of, a curious-looking building, that jutted out semicircularly from the neighbouring shops, with plaster pilasters and compo ornaments. The virtuosi of the quartier had discovered that the building was constructed in imitation of an ancient temple in Rome; this erection, then fresh and new, reached only to the entresol. The pilasters were painted light green and gilded in the cornices, while, surmounting the architrave, were three little statues— one held a torch, another ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... accustomed to all the comforts of life, were deprived even of necessaries, and had only straw to lie on. The hostages from Lubeck were taken to, Hamburg: they were placed between decks on board an old ship in the port: this was a worthy imitation of the prison hulks of England. On the 24th of July there was issued a decree which was published in the Hamburg Correspondent of the 27th. This decree consisted merely of a proscription list, on which were inscribed the names of some of the wealthiest men ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... or made, should cultivate and acquire a high action and a good swing of arm and body, as such a delivery will make the ball rise quickly and perpendicularly from the pitch; but the action must at all costs be easy and free, qualities which neither imitation nor education must allow ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... polemic divines, and intricate metaphysicians." We come to Italy: look at the affectations with which the Virtuosi and Filosofi have enchained the free spirit of poetry. "Poetry is no longer among them an imitation of what we see, but of what a visionary might wish. The zephyr breathes the most exquisite perfume; the trees wear eternal verdure; fawns, and dryads, and hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess, who has forgot, indeed, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... Fuegan," says Weddell, "a tin-pot full of coffee, which he drank, and was using all his art to steal the pot. The sailor, however, recollecting after awhile that the pot had not been returned, applied for it, but whatever words he made use of were always repeated in imitation by the Fuegan. At length he became enraged at hearing his requests reiterated, and, placing himself in a threatening attitude, in an angry tone, he said, 'You copper-coloured rascal, where is my tin-pot?' The Fuegan, assuming the same attitude, with his eyes fixed on the sailor, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... literary and educational kind—which perhaps made it undesirable that he should be burdened with the petty daily routine of an Abbot's duties. Some years before, he had endeavoured to induce Pope Agapetus[78] to found a School of Theology and Christian Literature at Rome, in imitation of the schools of Alexandria and Nisibis[79]. The clash of arms consequent on the invasion of Italy by Belisarius had prevented the fulfilment of this scheme; but the aged statesman now determined to devote the remainder of his ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... don't you should make its acquaintance at once—you won't breakfast upstairs in that gorgeous room overlooking the street where immaculate, smilelees waiters move noiselessly about, limp palms droop in the corners, and the tables are lighted with imitation wax candles burning electric wicks hooded by ruby-colored shades, but you will stumble down a dark, crooked staircase to the left of the office-desk, push open a swinging, green baize door studded with brass tacks, pass a corner of the bar resplendent in cut glass, and with lowered ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... she spoke, and espied upon one of the leaves a small green caterpillar: with a look scarcely less theatrical than mademoiselle's, she tore off the leaf and flung it from her; then, from habitual imitation of her governess, she set her foot upon the harmless caterpillar, and crushed it ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... me, Mr. Cockayne. If you mean it as a joke, I would have you know that people don't joke with their wives; and I should think you ought to know by this time that I am not in the habit of wearing imitation jewellery." ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... dwelling-house intended for the minister, built of the same material as the church and surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The attention of the stranger is also attracted by another consecrated building on the hill slope of Belvidere,—one of Irving's a "shingle palaces," painted in imitation of stone,—a great wooden sham, "whelked and horned" with pine spires and turrets, a sort of whittled representation of the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... to a club styled the Water Drinkers, which seemed to have been founded in imitation of the famous one of the Rue des Quatre-Vents, which is treated of in that fine story "Un Grand Homme de Province." Only there was a great difference between the heroes of the latter circle and the Water Drinkers who, like all imitators, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... occupants of the room were a little roly-poly cherub of a girl, seated in a tiny chair, holding in her arms a rag baby, which she rocked and dangled in servile imitation of her mammy, who, with bumpings peculiar to the nursery chair, was rocking to sleep a still younger babe. A fair little maiden, curled up comfortably upon a cushion, the firelight glistening upon her yellow locks, bent over a book, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... commensurate with our being, and these the methods of its intellectual and emotional appeal, it remains to examine the world of art in itself, and especially its genesis out of life. The method by which it is built up has long been recognized to be that of imitation of the actual, as has been assumed hitherto in the statement that all art is concrete. But the concrete which art creates is not a copy of the concrete of life; it is more than this. The mind takes the particulars of the world of sense into itself, generalizes them, and frames ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... your discourse for this once the poet's meadows and shades, and talk about ivy and yews, and all other commonplaces of that kind that writers love to introduce, with more zeal than discretion, in imitation of Plato's Ilissus and the famous willow and the gentle slope ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... each other until death did them part. Mrs. MacDermott had begged for a Presbyterian marriage in Ballyards ... "where your da and me were married"... but there were difficulties in the way of satisfying her desire, and she had consented to see them married in what, to her mind, was an imitation of a Papist church. Eleanor had stipulated for at least a year's engagement, partly so that they might become more certain of each other and partly to enable John to prove that he could earn enough money to maintain a home, but John had worn ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... an egg from a nest," he told the boys. Curving one hand into an imitation nest holding an imaginary egg, he hovered over it with the other hand, rubbing it gently, explaining to the boys, who watched him with absorbing interest, how the egg would change to a beautiful fluff of feathers ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... for certain—that as his subjects were various, so most of them were tales or stories of his own invention; which is also manifest from antiquity by those authors who are acknowledged to have written Varronian satires in imitation of his—of whom the chief is Petronius Arbiter, whose satire, they say, is now printing in Holland, wholly recovered, and made complete; when it is made public, it will easily be seen by any one sentence whether it be supposititious ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." It may be possible that our Saviour thought fit to adopt these forms, in imitation of some of the methods of treating diseases in those times; though, of course, his transcendent power did not require their agency. Rost, in his Commentaries on Plautus, has very learned disquisition on the meaning of the ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... But, whatever might be the future fortune of Emily, the present distinction, which the connection would afford for herself, was certain, since the splendour of Madame Clairval's establishment was such as to excite the general envy and partial imitation of the neighbourhood. Thus had she consented to involve her niece in an engagement, to which she saw only a distant and uncertain conclusion, with as little consideration of her happiness, as when she ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... end of the procession was a wagon with a skilful imitation of the Goose Man. It had been made out of old boards, hoops, clay, old rags, and iron. The Goose Man himself wore an open velvet doublet and short velvet trousers, from the pockets of which protruded rolls of banknotes. Instead of a cap he had a rusty pan on ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... in the Scottish dialect. When a mere stripling, he could repeat, which he did with enthusiasm, the long poem by James I. of "Christ-kirk on the Green;" he afterwards translated it into Latin verse; and an imitation of the same poem, entitled "The Monymusk Christmas Ba'ing," descriptive of the diversions attendant on the annual Christmas gatherings for playing the game of foot-ball at Monymusk, which he composed in his sixteenth year, attracting the notice of the lady of Sir Archibald Grant, Bart. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... against realism. Down with Dagon, the fish god! All art swings down towards imitation, in these days, fatally. But the man who loves art with wisdom sees the joke; it is the lustful that tremble and respect her ladyship; but the honest and romantic lovers of the Muse can see a joke and sit ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the time, nor insist on the special virtues that bloom amid the poor and lowly; but he attacked valiantly the crying sins of society in all time—the mammon-worship and the mercilessness, the false pretences and the fraud—and never failed to uphold for admiration and imitation "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever thing are pure, whatsoever things are lovely." And though both writers were sometimes hard on the professors of religion, neither failed in reverence ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... It was in imitation of this old custom that Reynolds conceived the idea that Mrs. Siddons, as the greatest of tragediennes, would appropriately impersonate the muse of tragedy.[9] The story is related that when she came to his studio for the first sitting the painter took her by the hand and led her to the chair, ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... resumptive by an other. When neither of these senses is intended by the writer, any form of the relative must needs be improper: as, "The greatest genius which runs through the arts and sciences, takes a kind of tincture from them, and falls unavoidably into imitation."—Addison, Spect., No. 160. Here, as I suppose, which runs should be in running. What else can the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... and of issuing as a genuine antique, a ballad, Auld Maitland. He also wrote about the ballad, as a thing obtained from recitation, to two friends and fellow-antiquaries. If to Scott's knowledge it was a modern imitation, Sir Walter deliberately lied. ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... and finding it ineffectual, attempted an imitation of the Selenites' movements. That seemed to interest them. At any rate they all set up the same movement. But as that seemed to lead to nothing, we desisted at last and so did they, and fell into a piping argument among themselves. Then one of them, shorter and very ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... in individual machines. Careful experimentation will usually show this to be a matter of the way the thermometer is hung in relation to the heating surfaces and to the eggs. Ovi-thermometers, which consists of a thermometer enclosed in the celluloid imitation of an egg, are now in the market and are perhaps as safe as ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... matter of experience; and in this sense it is impossible, without loss of memory and judgment on the one hand, or of veracity and simplicity on the other. Besides, of what use is it? To draw off our conscience from the relation between ourselves and the perfect ideal appointed for our imitation, to the vain comparison of one individual self with other men! Will their sins lessen mine, though they were greater? Does not every man stand or fall to his own Maker ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Smoke snarled with an even better imitation, as he passed among them on the back-trail to Dawson. Twice he attempted to cross the trailless icejams of the river, still resolutely followed, and both times he gave up and returned to the Dawson shore. Straight down ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... of Louis, a small, cheerful imitation of his father, slammed a bowl of cabbage soup down before them. Bertram, sighing his young, ravenous satisfaction, sank the ladle deep and stopped, his hand poised, his eyes fixed. Mark followed the direction of his glance. Louis Loisel, wearing his best ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... mistake about his gout; he was determined to have the gout properly and fully. Indulgence in port made him somewhat rubicund and "portly,"—he who had once been a pale little counter-jumper; and by means of shooting-coats, tight gaiters, and the right shape of hat he turned himself into a passable imitation of the fine old English gentleman. His tone altered, too, and instead of being uniformly diplomatic, it varied abruptly between a sort of Cheeryble philanthropy and a sort of Wellingtonian ferocity. During an attack of gout he was terrible in the house, and the oaths that he "rapped out" in ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... Were the streets kept clear, many young girls would be spared familiar knowledge that such a method of earning money is open to them. I have personally known several instances in which young girls have begun street solicitation through sheer imitation. A young Polish woman found herself in dire straits after the death of her mother. Her only friends in America had moved to New York, she was in debt for her mother's funeral, and as it was the slack season of the miserable sweat-shop sewing she had been doing, she was unable ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... forge? To steel or harden a pick or sharpen a drill is comparatively easy, but there is often a difficulty in getting a forge. Big single action bellows are sometimes bought at great expense, and some ingenious fellows have made an imitation of the blacksmith's bellows by means of ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... distractions, the modern child is surrounded by them; and it appears to be one of the main intentions of the present system of instruction not to leave to a child any moments of leisure for the indulgence of the imagination. But I am not offering the example of my childhood for imitation by ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... frontier, the different tribes are found loaded and beautifully ornamented with it, which they can now afford to do, for they consider it of little value, as the fur traders have ingeniously introduced an imitation of it, manufactured by steam or otherwise, of porcelain or some composition closely resembling it, with which they have flooded the whole Indian country, and sold at so reduced a price as to cheapen, and consequently destroy, the value and meaning of the original wampum, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... path with dwarfed pine groves, and tiny bamboo clumps, and a patch of grass for meadow, and a valley just like the great gully of the mountains, only a thousand times smaller, and but twenty feet long. So perfect was the imitation that even the miniature irrigated rice-fields, each no larger than a checker-board, were in full sprout. To make this little gem of nature in art complete, there fell from over a rock at one end a lovely little waterfall two feet high, which ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... in Britain; He surely in commiseration, Had chang'd the place of declaration. In Italy I've no objection, Warm nights are proper for reflection; But here, our climate is so rigid, That love itself, is rather frigid; Think on our chilly situation, And curb this rage for imitation. Then let us meet, as oft we've done, Beneath the influence of the sun; Or, if at midnight I must meet you, Oh! let me in your chamber greet you; There we can love for hours together, Much better in such ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron

... with elders, acted nothing as elders, then we can bring nothing of theirs into imitation; and by this we should cut the sinews, and raze the foundation of church government, as if there were no footsteps thereof in ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... began to weaken from that day. Forty-seven years later, when I was in the islands, Kainehameha V. was trying to repair Liholiho's blunder, and not succeeding. He had set up an Established Church and made himself the head of it. But it was only a pinchbeck thing, an imitation, a bauble, an empty show. It had no power, no value for a king. It could not harry or burn or slay, it in no way resembled the admirable machine which Liholiho destroyed. It was an Established Church without an Establishment; all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... regardless of private interest, and to stretch forth a bountiful hand for relief of distressed fellow-creatures, were considered as examples of uncommon benevolence and virtue, and therefore worthy of general imitation. The ancient Romans, famous for their courage and magnanimity, ranked the planting of colonies among their noblest works, and such as added greater lustre to their empire than their most glorious wars and victories. By the latter old ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... secretary, the government secretary to the titular councillor, or whatever other man was proper, and all business must come before him in this manner. In Holy Russia, all is thus contaminated with the love of imitation; every man imitates and copies his superior. They even say that a certain titular councillor, when promoted to the head of some small separate office, immediately partitioned off a private room for himself, called it the audience chamber, and posted at the door a lackey with red collar and braid, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... wild longing to be a school-girl again, in short frocks and pigtail, a scrap of a school-girl who could swing herself on to the table to pinch his arm, or mimic each gesture as it came, pulling her own sleek locks into an imitation of his shaggy crop, and scowling so darkly that, against his will, he was forced into laughter. Many a time in the days gone by had she smoothed the "black dog" off Rob's back in some such fashion; but now ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... in this case the education had already begun; for the child learns by simple imitation, without effort, almost through the pores of the skin. "A figtree looking on a figtree becometh fruitful," says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... Wharton insisted. "Come on." He began to lift and lower his shoulders in imitation of a rider. Bergman capered ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... countrymen, from the great intercourse that subsisted between England and France about the time of the first introduction of cards into the latter kingdom. If the din of arms in the reign of our fifth Henry should seem unfavourable to the imitation of an enemy's private diversions, it must be remembered that France was at that period under the dominion of England, that the English lived much in that country, and consequently joined in the amusements of the private hour, as well as in the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... Lessing's "Nathan the Wise." Quotations from one or the other were continually in readiness, uttered with all the air of a man so deeply impressed with certain sentiments, that they involuntarily burst from him on every occasion. This I could also perceive to be an imitation of what he had seen suceed with me; and I was not a little flattered by observing, that Berenice was unconsciously pleased, if not caught by the counterfeit. The affectation was skilfully managed, with a dash of his own manner, and through the whole preserving an air of nature and consistency: ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... bits of prosody in these verses,—one or two, indeed, quite unmanageable,—but we must remember that French meter will not read into ours. The last piece I will give flows very differently. It is in express imitation of Scott—but no nobler model could be chosen; and how much better for minor poets sometimes to write in another's manner, than always to imitate ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... style—I excel in didactics—'you do not learn from the lessons that life sets before you. Look at the stage, for example; the stage is universally acknowledged at the present day to be a great teacher of morals. Does not Irving say so?—and he ought to know. There is that splendid model for imitation, for instance, the Clown in the pantomime. How does Clown regulate his life? Does he take heed for the morrow? Not a bit of it! "I wish I had a goose," he says, at some critical juncture; and just as he says it—pat—a super strolls ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... hissing of the s's. Her accent was much more pronounced than his, due, doubtless, to the fact that while he went daily to his little corner of the English world to earn their living, her seclusion was complete. She saw few English save M'riar and the landlady—whose accent never tempted her to imitation. "He seemed to know you," she went on. "He seemed to wish, almost, to speak with you, but seemed to feel not positive that ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... by way of a treat, Permit the clergy again to eat, The Church will of course no longer need Imitation-parsons that never feed; And these wood creatures of ours will sell For secular purposes just as well— Our Beresfords, turned to bludgeons stout, May, 'stead of beating their own about, Be knocking the brains of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... do not reflect that the wants of a nation must be satisfied in their entirety, and that its moral and religious needs are of no less importance, to say the least, than the temporal. This is evident in all those countries where, in imitation of England, or at her instigation, parliamentary governments are now in operation— countries which include not only Europe, without excepting Greece and her chief islands, but Southern Africa at the Cape, America, North and South, Australia, and the, large islands of Jamaica, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... many mighty things when he comes home," said Mary, after a pause. "Do you remember Hawkins Browne's 'Address to Tobacco,' in imitation of Pope?— ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... cat lay luxuriously asleep on the canvas top of a barrel of melons, and the man who priced the melons asked if the owner would throw the cat in. There was a butcher's cart laden with carcasses of sheep, and one of the men asked the butcher if he called that stuff mutton. "No; imitation," said the butcher. They all seemed to be very good-natured. Lemuel thought he would ask for an apple; but he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... the care of our bodies to those who have picked up a few methods of treatment by experience or the imitation of others. The doctor must have, we all believe, a knowledge of the structure and working of the animal body; he must understand the action of drugs and other healing agents. We expect him not only to diagnose the disease—to tell us exactly what ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... it is, anyway," said Peter. "And if you want to strike—er—to make a hit you'll just take that song and do a deliberate imitation of it." ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... and not an eccentricity of the Caesars escaped him. He would not hunt flies by the hour, as Domitian had done, for that would be mere imitation; but he could collect cobwebs, and he did, by the ton. Caligula and Vitellius had been famous as hosts, but the feasts that Heliogabalus gave outranked them for sheer splendor. From panels in the ceiling such masses of flowers fell that guests were smothered. Those that ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... obstinacy. As it is early observed by those who are engaged in education, it is sometimes supposed to be inherent in the temper; but, so far from being naturally obstinate, infants show those strong propensities to sympathy and imitation, which prepare them for an opposite character. The folly of the nurse, however, makes an intemperate use of these happy propensities. She perpetually torments the child to exert himself for her amusement; all his senses and all his muscles she commands. He must see, hear, talk, or be silent, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... gates there had set for many years a double tide of empty-handed soldiers hurrying Francewards, and of enriched and laden bands who brought their spoils home. The prince's court, too, with its swarm of noble barons and wealthy knights, many of whom, in imitation of their master, had brought their ladies and their children from England, all helped to swell the coffers of the burghers. Now, with this fresh influx of noblemen and cavaliers, food and lodging were scarce to be had, and the prince was hurrying forward his forces to Dax ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... generally boyish appearance, was the very one to act King Alfred. She had folded a plaid traveling rug into a kilt which reached just to her bare knees, borrowed a velvet coatee and a leather belt from Mrs. Best, and, by the aid of bandages from the ambulance cupboard, had made quite a good imitation of Saxon leg-gear. Armed with a bow and arrows, hastily constructed from twigs cut in the garden, she advanced with a manly stride, begged for hospitality, and was accommodated with a stool by the hearth, where she sat whittling arrows in an abstracted ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... say what he was. I asts him. "I was going to say a gentleman," he says, "but on reflection, I doubt if I was ever anything but a cheap imitation. I never heard a man say that he was a gentleman at one time, that I didn't doubt him. Also," he goes on, working himself into a better humour again with the sound of his own voice, "if I HAD ever been a gentleman at any time, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... original, representation, copy, image, pattern, standard, design, imitation, prototype, type. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... use of in Egypt during the sixth dynasty, or immediately after the Memphite dynasty that reared the larger Pyramids of Gizeh. Thus, speaking of the ancient Egyptian architectural decorations, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson observes—"The Egyptians did not always confine themselves to the mere imitation of natural objects for ornament; and their ceilings and cornices offer numerous graceful fancy devices, among which are the guilloche, miscalled Tuscan borders, the chevron, and the scroll patterns. They are to be met with in a tomb of the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... America, but outside that there wasn't a thing right about it. One side was gray, all right, but the other side was green. The picture wasn't the right one. And there were a lot of other things about it, some of them absolutely ludicrous. It wasn't counterfeit—it wasn't even an imitation of ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper

... that the devotions continued till late in the evening. The ceremony was very strikingly and solemnly conducted. The communicants sat on each side of long narrow tables covered with white linen, in imitation of the last supper of Christ, and the Elders handed the bread and wine. After a short exhortation from one of the ministers the first set retired, and were succeeded by others. When the weather was fine a sermon, prayers, and psalm-singing ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... surprising progress in drawing. With no instruction whatever, he had succeeded in a very close and accurate imitation of the sketches in the drawing books Paul had purchased for him. It was a great delight to the little boy to draw, and hour after hour, as his mother sat at her work, he sat up to the table, and worked at his drawing, scarcely speaking a word unless spoken ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... with a love for geometry, and having once got over the drudgery of elementary acquisition, should be favourably situated for its cultivation, follows as a matter of course. The great difficulty lay in finding sufficient stimulus for their ambition, good models for their imitation, and adequate facilities for publishing the results at which they had arrived. The admirable history of the contents of their scanty libraries, given by MR. WILKINSON, leaves nothing more to be said on that head; except, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various

... bands of elk, thousands of antelope, herds of black-and white-tail deer and the large gray wolf. Coyotes about the size of a shepherd dog would assemble on the high bluffs or invade the camp and make night hideous by their continuous and almost perfect imitation of a human baby's cry, making sleep impossible. The prairie dog, the fierce rattlesnake, and the beautiful little white burrowing-owl, occupied the same hole in the ground, making a queer family combination. Contrary to the belief of all dwellers and travelers of the plains in that day, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... of imitation manifests itself in all their actions: hence it is by no means an uncommon occurrence to see a tall, round-shouldered, woolly-headed, buck-shinned, and inky-complexioned "Free Nigger," sauntering out on Sunday, shading ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... 1079 the minster is said to have been in ruins. At the latter date Bishop Lozing (Robert de Losinga) began to rebuild the cathedral, and there are vague accounts that it was in the form of a round church in imitation of a basilica of Charlemagne which had been built at Aix-la-Chapelle between 774 and 795. If such a form ever existed it must have been completely destroyed, as the work of the Norman period that remains is clearly English both in treatment and in detail. If this could be proved to be Lozing's ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... characteristic of formal verse satire.[19] But if Dryden insisted on the moral dignity of satire, he laid equal stress on the dignity attainable through verse and numbers. After complimenting Boileau's Lutrin for its successful imitation of Virgil, its blend of "the majesty of the heroic" with the "venom" of satire, Dryden speaks of "the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this [satire], as in heroic poetry itself, of which the satire is undoubtedly a species"; and earlier in the ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... locked the cave, walked with us to the house where he lighted a lamp and left us to prepare for the return to town; but the lamp, belonging to a bachelor, was empty, so we made our preparations in imitation of the blind. On the guide's return he lighted a candle, but suggested that twenty minutes were generally allowed for reaching ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... must be dreaming! I merely question the taste that allows his 'lady-like' favorite to caress him so openly, and should not have expressed my disapprobation so strongly if you had not rated me soundly, and held her up as a model for my humble imitation. If she and her governess are to stir up strife between you and me, I shall heartily wish them a speedy passage to Halifax or heaven. Beyond all peradventure I shall get murderously jealous if you dare to give this sloe-eyed, peony-faced ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... flatten into a straight line—the best imitation of a smile she can work up, I expect—and she turns down a leaf in her magazine. Then she shifts sudden to another chair, where she has me under the electrolier, facin' her, and I knows that I'm let in for something. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... Princesses, on hearing these words, looked unutterable things, and a roseate hue rushed into their lily-like cheeks; but their eyes did not wander up and down the hall among the Knights, for, with a constancy worthy of all admiration and imitation, they fixed them on ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... to-morrow,' I said, 'is the Inkulu's business, not yours. I am his prisoner. But if you lift your hand on me to-day so as to draw one drop of blood the Inkulu will make short work of you. The vow is upon you, and if you break it you know what happens.' And I repeated, in a fair imitation of the priest's voice, the terrible curse he had ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... the quaint old mediaeval city in the winter "season," when the smart balls are given at the Corsini or the Strozzi, when the Cascine is filled with pretty women at four o'clock, and the jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio put forth their imitation cinquecento wares, would not know it in August, when beneath that fiery Tuscan sun it is as a city of the dead by day, while at night the lower classes come forth from their slums to idle, to gossip, ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... deliberately with the intention—frequently missed—of doing better. One painter is impressed with the success of another and strives to imitate, adopts his methods, his palette, his key, his color scheme, his brush work, and so on;—these conscious efforts of imitation usually result in failures which, if not immediately conspicuous, soon make their shortcomings felt; the note being forced and unnatural, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... Africa; the Egyptian ports with their traditional corruption that at sunset was beginning to tremble and steam like a fetid morass; Alexandria in whose low coffee houses were imitation Oriental dancers with no more clothes than a pocket handkerchief, every woman of a different nation and shrieking in chorus all the languages ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... stopping to listen, overheard the castanet dance (which reminded her of the emphasis with which Agatha had snapped her fingers at Mrs. Miller), the bee on the window pane, "Robin Adair" (encored by the servants), and an imitation of herself in the act of appealing to Jane Carpenter's better nature to induce her to study for the Cambridge Local. She waited until the cold and her fear of being discovered spying forced her to creep upstairs, ashamed of having enjoyed a silly entertainment, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... woodchucks were of several sizes and kinds. One little woodchuck girl rolled before her a doll's baby-cab, in which lay a woodchuck doll made of cloth, in quite a perfect imitation of a real woodchuck. It was stuffed with something soft to make it round and fat, and its eyes were two glass beads sewn upon the face. A big boy woodchuck wore knickerbockers and a Tam o' Shanter cap and rolled a hoop; and there were several smaller ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum



Words linked to "Imitation" :   humor, counterfeit, forgery, false, postiche, emulation, copy, philosophy, humour, wit, school of thought, artificial, parody, lampoon, copying, simulated, mock-heroic, caricature, put-on, faux, wittiness, fake, mimicry, mimesis, echo, takeoff, witticism, unreal, doctrine, spoof, imitation leather, travesty, formalism



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