mindmap root((假冒)) imposture applies to any situation in which a spurious object or performance is passed off as genuine: the movie's claim of social concern is an ~. fraud usually implies a deliberate perversion of truth but, applied to a person, may imply no more than pretense and hypocrisy: a diary that was exposed as a ~. sham applies to a fraudulent but close imitation of a real thing or action: condemned the election as a ~ and a travesty of democracy. fake implies an imitation of or substitution for the genuine but does not necessarily imply dishonesty as a motive: these are ~s, the real jewels being in the vault. humbug suggests elaborate pretense that may be deliberate or may result from self-deceit: the diet business is populated with ~s. counterfeit applies especially to close imitation of something valuable: ~ 20 dollars.