Personation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of assuming someone else's identity, often to deceive or impersonate ; the crime or offense of pretending to be another individual ; the adoption of another's persona for fraudulent or theatrical purposes
2. The practice of representing oneself as another person, typically to mislead others ; an illegal act involving false representation of identity ; a performance or enactment where one person assumes the character of someone else
3. The action of deliberately taking on the identity of a different individual to gain advantage or commit fraud ; a deceptive impersonation that may constitute a criminal offense ; the theatrical or artistic portrayal of another person's character or role

Etymology: "Personation" is formed from "person" plus the suffix "-ation," which turns a verb into a noun for an act or process. The verb it comes from is "personate," meaning to play or represent a character, and that verb traces to Medieval Latin "personare," itself built from Latin "persona," the mask worn by actors in classical theatre. So the core idea is literally the mask: to personate is to put on a face that is not your own. The meaning has moved in a notable direction. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "personate" was mostly used in a neutral or theatrical sense, for acting a role or representing a figure in a play or pageant. The darker sense of impersonating someone in order to deceive took hold later, and "personation" in the legal sense of fraudulently pretending to be another real person, such as voting or claiming under another's name, became the usage most associated with the noun today.

Synonyms: impersonation, masquerade, disguise, counterfeiting

Antonyms: authenticity, genuineness