Plagiaries

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The acts of stealing another's work or ideas without giving credit
2. instances of using someone else's intellectual property dishonestly
3. specific examples of imitation that lack proper attribution and acknowledgment

Etymology: "Plagiaries" is the plural of "plagiary," a word whose original sense had nothing to do with stolen writing. It comes from Latin "plagiārius," meaning "kidnapper," formed from "plagium," "kidnapping," which probably derives from "plaga," a net or snare. The image is of catching someone in a trap, and a person who seized another's child or slave and passed them off as their own was the first plagiary. The shift to literary theft came through the idea of stealing someone else's property or persons and claiming them as one's own. Writers' words were treated the same way: a borrowed line or poem presented as your own creation. English took the word in this sense, so a plagiary became someone who appropriates another's work, and "plagiaries" names the individual instances of such appropriation.

Synonyms: imitations, copied works