copycat

See also: copy-cat and copy cat

English

Alternative forms

copy cat, copy-cat

Etymology

From copy +‎ cat (“former derogatory term for a person”).

Noun

copycat (plural copycats)

(informal, derogatory) One who imitates or plagiarizes others' work.
A criminal who imitates the crimes of another; specifically, a criminal who commits the same crime, especially a highly-publicized one, that has just been or recently committed by someone else.
a copycat strangler

Translations

one who imitates or plagiarizes others' work

Arabic: مُقَلِّد‎ m (muqallid)
Bulgarian: имитатор (bg) m (imitator), подражател (bg) m (podražatel)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 跟风狗
Danish: kopist c
Dutch: na-aper (nl)
Estonian: järeleahvija, plagiaator
Finnish: matkija (fi), jäljittelijä
French: copycat (fr) m, imitateur (fr) m, copieur (fr) m, faussaire (fr) m
German: Nachahmer (de), Nachäffer, Nachmacher m, Imitator (de) m
Japanese: ^{(please verify)} パクり (pakuri)
Latvian: pakaļdarinātājs m
Macedonian: папага́л m (papagál)
Norwegian:
Bokmål: hermegås (no) m or f
Polish: imitator (pl) m, naśladowca (pl) m
Portuguese: copião (pt), imitador m, imitadora f
Russian: имита́тор (ru) m (imitátor), подража́тель (ru) m (podražátelʹ)
Serbo-Croatian: imitator (sh), oponašatelj (sh), epigon (sh)
Spanish: copión (es) m, copiona (es) f
Swedish: efterapare (sv), härmapa (sv)
Westrobothnian: happmakar m

Adjective

copycat (comparative more copycat, superlative most copycat)

Imitative; unoriginal.
- 1997, “The Atlantic monthly”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
  "Because of my size, I was a natural leader in junior high school. Gangs are the most copycat of subcultures. It used to be zoot suits; now it's tattoos. When I was thirteen, I got a tattoo"
- 1997, Daniel Miller, Capitalism: an ethnographic approach:
  As one executive put it: Now in the beverage market we are to a great extent very copycat.
- 2009, Alan Cole, Fathering your father: the Zen of fabrication in Tang Buddhism:
  It was that very copycat kind of "grandfather stealing" that makes Jinjue's text look like the son of Du Fei's Record, even as it works to push Du Fei's "father-text" out of the way.

Verb

copycat (third-person singular simple present copycats, present participle copycatting, simple past and past participle copycatted)

To act as a copycat; to copy in a shameless or derivative way
- 2007 September 3, Janet Maslin, “His Girl Friday Meets a Sadistically Chic Serial Killer”, in New York Times‎:
  In a genre that is rife with copycatting, Ms. Cain deserves some credit for having gotten a potentially interesting new series off the ground.

French

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English copycat.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /kɔ.pi.ka/, /kɔ.pi.kat/
Audio (file)

Noun

copycat m (plural copycats)

copycat criminal
Synonym: imitateur