Other forms: emulated, emulating, emulates
To emulate is to copy somebody because you admire them. Emulate his success, seek to emulate, emulate the style.
The admiration is what separates it from imitating: emulating means trying to match somebody you rate, and it carries a wish to equal rather than merely to copy. In computing, to emulate is to make one system behave like another, and an emulator lets old software run on new hardware. Note emulation; and that the Latin means to rival.
1verbemulateTo copy somebody because you admire them.
“The young player tried to emulate her tennis hero by practising every day.”
2verbsystemTo make one system behave like another.
“This program emulates an old games console, so you can play classic games on a laptop.”
emulate is an admiring imitation.
Latin aemulari means to rival or strive to equal, from aemulus, rivalling. The wish to match rather than merely to copy is in the word from the start.
Latin
aemulātus
English, today
emulate
1586; Latin aemulātus, perfect active participle of Latin aemulor (“to rival, emulate”), see -ate and -ate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Verbs