Other forms: impersonating, impersonated, impersonates
To impersonate is to pretend to be somebody else. Impersonate a police officer, impersonate the accent, a good impersonation.
On a stage it is an act and on a doorstep it is a crime: impersonating a police officer is a specific offence in most countries, and pretending to be somebody to get their money is fraud. Comedians impersonate and confidence tricksters do the same thing for gain.
1verbimpersonateTo pretend to be somebody else.
“The man impersonated a gas engineer to get into the old woman's home.”
impersonate is a pretending.
Middle English
persoun
English
person
English, today
impersonate
From in- + person + -ate. person comes from Middle English persoun. From Middle English persoun, personne et al., from Anglo-Norman parsone, persoun et al. (Old French persone (“human being”), French personne), and its source Latin persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”), perhaps a loanword from ett 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (“mask”). In this sense, displaced native man, which came to mean primarily "adult male" in Middle English; see mann. Displaced native Old English hād (“person, individual”). a doublet of parson and persona.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA