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Personate

verb
(past & past part. personated; pres. part. personating)
1.
Pretend to be someone you are not; sometimes with fraudulent intentions.  Synonyms: impersonate, pose.
2.
Attribute human qualities to something.  Synonym: personify.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Personate" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Earl of Warwick had escaped from the Tower gave an opportunity for an imposter, Lambert Simnel, to personate the earl. In order to satisfy the Londoners that the rumour of Warwick's escape was a fabrication, Henry caused his prisoner to be paraded through the streets of the city, and exposed to public view at St. Paul's. After Simnel's defeat (16 June, 1487), the Common Council agreed (28 June) ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... Do you think that the nobles and the people will enjoy being fooled as you've fooled them? Do you think they'll love a King who was too drunk to be crowned, and sent a servant to personate him?" ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... "and I have no doubt that many persons have been ruined by going; but they did not go for the same object that we go. I am not going just for the pleasure of witnessing the play, by any means; I want to see how the actors personate the different characters. To read Shakspeare well, it must be read ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... Lytton? They were counterparts of each other, except in one small particular. Craven Kyte had a black mole on his chin. And he was deeply in love with Mary Grey, and she could have done whatever she pleased with him. She could have persuaded him to personate Alden Lytton at that marriage ceremony; and I am sure that she has done so. I feel a positive conviction that ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... a flirtation with the leader of the band, a most respectable man by the way, and of considerable talent. After giving the affair all due consideration, we decided upon a mock-duel, in which I was to personate one of the heroes, my rival being the aforesaid leader. We carefully and ostentatiously avoided all appearance of communication, and in such a way that it always reached her knowledge. Thus by gentle innuendoes ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... able to personate the stupid society woman if you try for ever. But it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon for spies to guess your opinions, even though you can't simper and hide behind your fan like ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... of a female slave, settled an assignation with him at the celebration of the rites of the good goddess. Claudius was directed to come in the habit of a singing girl, a character he could easily personate, being young and of a fair complexion. As soon as the slave saw him enter, she ran to inform her mistress. The mistress eager to meet her lover, immediately left the company and threw herself into his arms, but could not be prevailed upon by him to return so soon as he ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... * on her Playing upon a Harpsichord in a Room hung with Flower-Pieces of her own Painting Evening: an Ode. To Stella To the Same To a Friend To a Young Lady, on her Birthday Epilogue intended to have been Spoken by a Lady who was to personate 'The Ghost of Hermione' The Young Author Friendship: an Ode. Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1743 Imitation of the Style ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... King's cabinet when arrested, and interrogated, and confronted with her face to face. The Prince started when he saw her. The comparison of her features with those of the guilty wretch who had dared to personate her in the garden at Versailles completely destroyed his self-possession. Her Majesty's person was become fuller, and her face was much longer than that of the infamous D'Oliva. He could neither speak nor write an intelligible reply to the questions ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... author of 'Deism fairly stated,' &c.—a work which excited much attention at its publication in 1746—had said, 'That a perfectly innocent Being, of the highest order among intelligent natures, should personate the offender and suffer in his place and stead, in order to take down the wrath and resentment of the Deity against the criminal, and dispose God to show mercy to him—the Deist conceives to be both unnatural and improper, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... pidaneys or offerings to be made at sunset, at midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by the friends of the afflicted, and declares the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... there's no body,' This did not mean that she was unwilling to keen in the absence of a corpse, but that she was unable to do so. Just before giving up in despair my friend was seized with a brain wave, and asked her if it would suffice for him to lie down on the floor and personate the corpse. When he had done this the old woman found herself able to get on ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry

... don't yo' personate me! Counting from de little finger back to de thumb—yo' start anythin', I ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston

... will be the readiest course we can take to introduce popery. And I am the more inclined to this opinion, because we know it has been the constant practice of the Jesuits to send over emissaries, with instructions to personate themselves members of the several prevailing sects among us. So it is recorded, that they have at sundry times appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents and Quakers, according as any of these were most in credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of exploding ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... a voice shrill with passion, while Agnes uttered a loud shriek; 'By St. Barbara, young Lady, you have an excellent invention! You must personate the Bleeding Nun, truly? What impiety! What incredulity! Marry, I have a good mind to let you pursue your plan: When the real Ghost met you, I warrant, you would be in a pretty condition! Don Alphonso, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for seducing a young ignorant Creature ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... really had one, think you I could have been so wicked as to personate her? Susan, I know not what I am saying, but you know who it is that has turned ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie

... tall man, and a tall woman, hired at a vast price. A strong man exceeding dear. Two dogs that walk on their hind legs only, and personate human creatures so well, they might be mistaken for them. A human creature that personates a dog so well that he might almost be taken for one. Two human cats. A most curious set of puppies. A pair of pigeons. A set of rope-dancers ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... One is a master mariner named Robert Evans, the other a merchant adventurer of his acquaintance whom I have not yet seen. Now you are to mark these two men well, note all they say and their manner of speaking, for to-morrow you will have to personate these characters before one who would be only too glad to find ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... of the palace, towards which every eye was upturned from the compact crowd below. The ballet was designed to represent the four primary Elements, and the appointed moment had no sooner arrived than a flourish of trumpets announced the approach of the Due de Bellegarde, who with his party were to personate Water. The procession was opened by twenty-four pages habited in cloth of silver, each attended by two torch-bearers; these were followed by twelve Syrens playing on hautboys, who were in their turn ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... friend Hamad," he began, for Haroun and Giafer were known to him only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf—"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption be ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... sublimity is connected with enormous dangers that imparts to our consternation or our pity a tincture of the pleasing. This, at least, may be experienced by those who are beyond the verge of peril. My own person was exposed to no hazard. I had leisure to conjure up terrific images, and to personate the witnesses and sufferers of this calamity. This employment was not enjoined upon me by necessity, but was ardently pursued, and must therefore have been recommended by ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... and I declare the sprite drove her about like a slave—"Grandmamma, fetch me this," "grandmamma, you must do that," till at last she brought my poor mother down on her knees, stooping under the table to personate an old cow in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... man may personate Ukuku or issue commands for the family. On other occasions, as in Shiku, to raise prices, the society lays ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... flout, taunt, imitate, gibe, ridicule, jeer, schout; balk, disappoint, delude, tantalize, elude; defy, disregard; ape, mimic, personate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... at me with a flash of intelligence, "HE can personate him, and say it. Can you?" he turned to ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... Hamlet; Lieut.-Col. Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother Gertrude; Capt. W. F. Tiemann, 159th N. Y., was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton of Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and I, having lost about forty pounds of flesh since my capture—it was thought most appropriate that I should be the Ghost! Every morning for some weeks on the empty first floor we read and rehearsed, and really ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... admit the genuineness of Colossians and Philemon; and 2 Thessalonians and Ephesians are now being placed in the same list even by some extreme critics. In fact, the use made of St. Paul's Epistles in the 2nd century, and the impossibility of finding any one who had the genius to personate the great apostle, are two things which have disabled fancy-criticism. The Epistles to Timothy and Titus are still confidently rejected by some authors, but this confidence is being undermined. ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... was, that Mr. Leek was so anxious to let Anderbury-on-the-Mount to the rich Baron Stolmuyer, of Saltzburgh, that he got a friend of his to come and personate Sir John Westlake, while he, the baron, was looking at the premises, in order to drive him at once to a conclusion upon the matter; so that what made Sir John so very anxious that he should not be called forward in the matter, consisted in the simple fact that ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... base o' the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures That labour on the bosom of this sphere To propagate their states: amongst them all, Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; Whose present grace to present slaves and ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... imitator, echo, cuckoo|, parrot, ape, monkey, mocking bird, mime; copyist, copycat; plagiarist, pirate. V. imitate, copy, mirror, reflect, reproduce, repeat; do like, echo, reecho, catch; transcribe; match, parallel. mock, take off, mimic, ape, simulate, impersonate, personate; act &c. (drama) 599; represent &c. 554; counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, lampoon, burlesque. follow in the steps of, tread in the steps, follow in the footsteps of, follow in the wake of; take pattern by; follow ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... great only in stature, quitted the rank of serjeant in the Gardes Francaises to become a bad player. In the character of kings, he scarcely now appears but to personate tyrants. He is very cold, and speaks through his nose like a Capuchin friar, which has gained him the appellation of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... the tale he told. We have seen in our own time how even an Arthur Orton could find sensible and good people to believe the tale with which he sought to enforce claim upon the Tichborne baronetcy. Savage had literary skill, and he could personate the manners of a gentleman in days when there were still gentlemen of fashion who drank, lied, and swaggered into midnight brawls. I have no doubt whatever that he was the son of the nurse with whom the Countess of Macclesfield had placed a child that died, and that after his ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... designs, comprising the grave, the comic, and the beautiful. A manuscript should be used in which to write the names of the tableaux, directions for forming each, the names of the performers, the parts which they personate, the styles of the costumes, and the quantity and kind of scenery and furniture ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... d'Oliva, who was to personate the Queen, in an interview with the Cardinal, was not at all like Marie Antoinette. Her short, round, buxom face bears no resemblance to the long and noble outlines of the features of the Queen. But both women were fair, and of figures not dissimilar. On ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... conduct, though a very common way of management, is as ridiculous as the officer's would be, who had but few men under his command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a greater estate than he really has, is of all others the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonour. Yet if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error; ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... whole divisions of the hustings to themselves, where they polled every beggar from the streets. The question is not of title to vote in most cases, but of identity; most families being at this season out of town, a rascal was found to personate every absentee. The suborners of perjury not regularly conferring, very many instances occur of an absentee being represented by four or five, all admitted to vote on ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... accordingly he apply'd to the only wound he was then griev'd with; which though it went quite through his Heart, yet thank God was not Mortal. He was not a little rejoyc'd at his good Fortune in getting so early a Favour from his Mistress, and notwithstanding the violence he did himself to personate a sick Man, he could not forbear giving some Symptoms of an extraordinary content; and telling her that he did not doubt to receive a considerable Proportion of ease from the Application of what had so often kiss'd her fair Hand. Leonora who did not ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve

... listen to your address. And this, with her friends' folly, has helped to throw her into your power. How you have requited her is too apparent. It becomes the character we all bear, to disclaim your actions by her. And let me tell you, that to have her abused by wicked people raised up to personate us, or any of us, makes a double call upon us to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... situation, the spirit of mischief with which I am at all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... act a particular part, however, is a very different thing, and a very difficult thing as well. The actor's aim is, or should be, to convert his own accidental personality into the real and essential personality of the character he is called upon to personate, whatever that character may be; or perhaps I should say that there are two schools of action—the school of those who attain their effect by exaggeration of personality, and the school of those who attain it by suppression. It would ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... over-fine fooleries and subtill trifles." There is more wilfulnesse and wrangling among them, than pertains to a sacred profession. But what person a man undertakes to act, he doth ever therewithal! personate his owne. Allthough they say, that in vertue it selfe, the last scope of our aime is voluptuousnes. It pleaseth me to importune their eares still with this word, which so much offends their hearing. And if it ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... down first not last:—first. Let the other one come down after you; and you come down first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and here, 'Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil; 'take it, signorina; you know how to wear it. Luigi and the saints watch over you.' Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and a packet ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in Jerusalem was Solomon; was Solomon the author of this book? This is the apparent claim; the question is whether we have not here, as in the case of Daniel, a book put forth pseudonymously; whether the author does not personate Solomon, and speak his message through Solomon's lips. That this is the fact modern scholars almost unanimously maintain. Their reasons for their opinion ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... table. De Foe's extraordinary love for supernatural stories of the gossiping variety found vent in 'A History of Apparitions,' and his 'System of Magic.' The position which he takes up is a kind of modified rationalism. He believes that there are genuine apparitions which personate our dead friends, and give us excellent pieces of advice on occasion; but he refuses to believe that the spirits can appear themselves, on account 'of the many strange inconveniences and ill consequences which would happen if the souls of men and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... locked, and no one but the doctor and the nurse were permitted to enter. Yet I learnt afterwards all that happened. Marie, my maid, who was slowly dying of consumption, was moved into the principal bedchamber; and when Martin arrived, she was made to personate me. It was the priest who gained her consent; the priest who confessed her and gave her absolution. His share of the spoil was to be the De Vaux estates, handed over to the Church if ever they carried out their plot successfully. Martin ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... small properties, where labour is abundant. They alone of the peoples of western Europe have preserved specimens of almost every class of dance known to primitive races. These are (1) animal (or possibly totem) dances, in which men personate animals, the bear, the fox, the horse, &c.; (2) dances to represent agriculture and the vintage performed with wine-skins; (3) the simple arts, such as weaving, where the dancers, each holding a long coloured ribbon, dance round a pole on which is gradually formed a pattern like a Scotch ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... consoled himself with music and singing, and refused to take any further part in the war. During his absence the Greeks were hard pressed, and at last he so far relaxed his anger as to allow his friend Patroclus to personate him, lending him his chariot and armour. The slaying of Patroclus by the Trojan hero Hector roused Achilles from his indifference; eager to avenge his beloved comrade, he sallied forth, equipped with new armour fashioned by Hephaestus, slew Hector, and, after dragging his body round the walls ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... promised interview with his royal mistress. There was at that time in Paris a young woman named D'Oliva, noted for her resemblance to the queen; and Madame de la Motte, on the promise of a handsome reward, found no difficulty in persuading her to personate Marie Antoinette, and meet the Cardinal de Rohan at the evening twilight in the gardens of Versailles. The meeting took place accordingly. The cardinal was deceived by the uncertain light, the great resemblance ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... upon the power of her charms to appease the anger of the triumvir. She ascended the Cydnus in a gilded barge, with oars of silver, and sails of purple silk. Beneath awnings wrought of the richest manufactures of the East, the beautiful queen, attired to personate Venus, reclined amidst lovely attendants dressed to represent cupids and nereids. Antony was completely fascinated, as had been the great Caesar before him, by the dazzling beauty of the "Serpent of the Nile." ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... be. It is not possible to conceive of anything more diabolically bad than what she did to me. She made me her sport—yours, too, perhaps, or she would at least have wished it. On that holy ground where my people lie in peace she made me deny my faith, she made me, in your eyes and her own, personate a renegade of my race, she made me confess in the Christian creed, she made me seem to die for a belief I abhor. Can you conceive of anything more devilish? A moment later she smiles upon me and presses my hand, and is anxious to know of my good health. And but for you, I should never have ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... together to see Shakespeare's "Richard," or rather we went to see the man who was to personate Shakespeare's "Richard"—and so did thousands; we did not see him, however. There was a great tumult, I remember, in the theatre. The man who was to perform the part of Richard, and who it was said ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... very winning and even graceful manner—"that shall be my columbine," said he:—and she was so. A young lad of a sturdy form, and sluggish movement, is converted into a clown: a slim youth is made to personate harlequin—and thus he forms and puts into action the different characters of his entertainment... absolutely and exclusively out of the very lowest ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... little remembered by Charles II. He was, however, an attendant at court, and one of his majesty's companions in his gay hours. On one such occasion, a stranger came with an important suit for an office of great value, just vacant. The king, by way of joke, desired the earl to personate him, and ordered the petitioner to be admitted. The gentleman, addressing himself to the supposed monarch, enumerated his services to the royal family, and hoped the grant of the place would not be deemed too great a reward. "By ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... with a merry laugh. "Order up gray Bess, and dress him to personate thee. He can put on a mask and drop his shoulders. Thy plaided camlet cape will do well. And put Moppet on a pillion behind. Someone else must go. Ah, Madam Kent! who will enjoy it mightily and sit up like a brigadier. Then, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... with hands, eternal in the heavens' (2 Cor 5:1). We have then, a house for our soul in this world, and this house is the body, for the apostle can mean nothing else; therefore he calls it an earthly house. 'If our earthly house'—our house. But who doth he personate if he says, This is a house for the soul; for the body is part of him ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... by marriage, of whose relationship he is also entirely unconscious. His parlours are made with French windows; they are open, and invite the bailiff-hunted Brown into the house. What so natural as that he should find out the state of family affairs from a loquacious Abigail, and should personate the expected nephew? Mr. Tidmarsh (the property old gentleman of the farce-writers) is in ecstacics. Mrs. T. sees in the supposed Selbourne a son-in-law for her daughter, whose vision is directed to the same prospects. Happy, domestic circle! unequalled family felicity! too soon, alas! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various

... him my case; he is full of romance, and when we overheard you in the balcony we were glad of the hint. Sigismund was with me when you came, and admired Helen immensely, so he was wild to have a part in the frolic. I let him begin, and followed you unseen to Heidelberg, meaning to personate an artist. Meeting you at the castle, I made a good beginning with the vaults and the ring, and meant to follow it up by acting the baron, you were so bent on finding him, but Sigismund forbade it. Turning over a trunk of things ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... 1009. An absurd rumor had existed that Barbara Blomberg had only been employed to personate Don John's mother. She died at an estate called Arronjo de Molinos, four leagues from Madrid, some years after the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... professions, very far from being desirous of the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance. "But it is no longer in my power," says Probus, in a private letter, "to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have imposed upon me." [25] His dutiful address to the senate displayed the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot: "When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... be strangely obliging that makes You think I can personate the brave Antonio, Whom I can but strive ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is Archimago, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and, horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... like Vrain. For purposes of your own, which you can easily guess, you made the acquaintance of this man, a profligate and a drunkard, and proposed, for a certain sum of money to be paid to his wife, that he, Michael Clear, should personate Vrain and live in the Silent House in Geneva Square, under the name of Berwin. You knew that Clear was slowly dying of consumption and drink, so you trusted that he would die as Vrain; that Mrs. Vrain—who I believe is in the plot—would recognise the corpse by the description in the newspapers; ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... veto for canvassers which was printed on the little card said that you must not persuade any one to personate a voter. I have no idea what it means. To dress up as an average voter seems a little vague. There is no well-recognised uniform, as far as I know, with civic waistcoat and patriotic whiskers. The enterprise resolves itself ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... very old-fashioned, requiring four people, all clad in the style of one hundred and fifty years ago. Uncle James would wear a gray wig and "small clothes" and personate "Grandsir Whalen"; Kyzie Dunlee, Grandsir's old wife, in white cap, "short gown," and petticoat, was to ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May

... of Samaria!" read Flossy, now bending over the book, and her eyes and cheeks told the story of her aversion to the idea. "Who would be willing to personate the Saviour?" ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... and he and poor Madame cut Clement's hair as short as if he had been a Roundhead. She had kept plenty of money in the house ever since she had feared for her son, and this they put in a belt round his waist. Altogether, he came out not at all unlike the laquais Jacques Pierrot, whom he was to personate. Eustace said the old lady took leave of her son with her stern Jansenist composure, which my tender- hearted Clement could not imitate. Eustace rejoined the chairmen and came back through the dark streets, while Clement walked ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... accepted him as her former lover? Surely here was a mass of evidence sufficient to cast light on the case. Imagine an impostor arriving for the first time in a place where all the inhabitants are unknown to him, and attempting to personate a man who had dwelt there, who would have connections of all kinds, who would have played his part in a thousand different scenes, who would have confided his secrets, his opinions, to relations, friends, acquaintances, to all sorts of people; who had also a wife—that is to say, a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... at the revelation. "Why, then," he cried, after a pause, "this may supply the very motive-power that is wanting, for one to personate Fred Massingbird." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One of the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, emoluments and authorities, upon "President Brigham Young!" The people accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... words, "If AEneas were here!" The mist scatters. AEneas appears; thanks Dido, and greets Ilioneus (662-723). Dido welcomes AEneas to Carthage and prepares a festival in his honour. AEneas sends Achates to summon his son and bring gifts for Dido (724-774). Cupid, persuaded by Venus to personate Ascanius and inspire Dido with love for AEneas, comes with the gifts to Dido's palace, while Ascanius is carried away to Idalia. The night is passed in feasting. After the feast Iopas sings the wonders of the firmament, and Dido, bewitched by Cupid, begs ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... stores and prisoners, and, leaving them under a strong guard, proceed with two of his prows loaded to the gunwale with merchandise, to the port. The merchant-boats which he had previously sunk, and whose crews he had murdered, provided him with "port-clearances," which enabled him to personate the trader and regularly enter and clear the customs at Singapore, so as to cause no suspicion; then, returning to his place of rendezvous with a fresh supply of guns, ammunition, etcetera, he divided his ill-gotten gains and recommenced his ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... firm as "Campbell & Co." existed; Ganesh Babu and Salim Sardar were both accomplices of Jogesh, who had rented an office on the Strand for one month at Rs. 300 which was never paid. He had also engaged twenty or thirty loafers at 4 annas (4d.) a head to personate coolies for a couple of hours. This part of the inquiry was satisfactory enough—for the police; not so the efforts they made to trace Jogesh and his accomplices. From that day to this nothing has been heard ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... are divided into two equal parties, one of which personate defenders, and take their places in the barn, with the doors and windows open. The other party are the besiegers, and are stationed outside the barn. The fighting is done by means of weeds specially prepared for the purpose. The weeds commonly ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... retire when the animal is about to be killed by the Got who represents Bhairavi. The shrine, in which the images of the gods are kept, is always shut, and no person is allowed to enter but the priest (Pujari) and the Gots, who personate in masks these deities. Once in twelve years the Raja offers a solemn sacrifice. It consists of two men, of such a rank that they wear a thread; of two buffaloes, two goats, two rams, two cocks, two ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is only to be ascribed to the intolerable license with which the newspapers break not only the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum, when they personate great men, and, like bad poets, make the heroes of the piece talk more like us Grub-Street scribblers than in a style consonant to persons of gravity and importance in the state. It was easy to demonstrate ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... President, authorized the purchaser to demand protection from the national arms, if molested. All this was well enough; but it was soon discovered that the speculators would hire miscreants and drunken Indians to personate the real possessors of lands, and, having paid them the money, would take it back as soon as the purchase was completed, give the Indian a jug of whiskey, or a small bag of silver, for the fraud, and so become lords of the soil. Great dissatisfaction arose, and lives were ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in his dialogue or his soliloquies, and his strong dramatic power, his realistic power as an actor, is as effective as ever. A great critic at the beginning of this century said that Hamlet is the most difficult part to personate on the stage, that it is like the attempt to 'embody a shadow.' I cannot say that I agree with this idea. Hamlet seems to me essentially a good acting part, and in Mr. Irving's performance of it there is that combination of poetic grace with ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... taste which can tackle plum-pudding and the youthful digestion for which this delicacy has no terrors. However, while it is impossible, or at least inexpedient, for papa to play at being his own urchin, the latter is restrained by no considerations, moral or otherwise, from attempting to personate his papa. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Personate" :   masquerade, assign, personify, betray, ascribe, lead astray, impute, deceive, impersonate, personation, attribute



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