plagiarise

plagiarise — verb

1. to take words, ideas, or creative work produced by someone else and present them

1.verbtransitive / intransitiveB2
Definition

to take words, ideas, or creative work produced by someone else and present them as if they were your own original creation, especially in an academic or professional setting

Example

Vikram was expelled after investigators proved he had plagiarised his dissertation from a blog.

passive: be + plagiarised + from

Manuela checked every footnote in her paper, afraid of accidentally plagiarising someone's work.

plagiarise + someone's + [noun]

Common collocations
  • plagiarise an essay / a paper / a thesis / a song / a design
  • plagiarise from a source / a website / an author
  • caught / accused of plagiarising
  • blatantly / deliberately / accidentally plagiarise
Synonyms
  • copy

    broader and less negative; copying can be done with or without permission and does not necessarily involve deception

  • steal

    more general; refers to taking anything dishonestly, not specifically intellectual property

  • pirate

    specifically refers to reproducing and distributing copyrighted material without authorisation (usually digital)

  • cheat

    broader still; covers any rule-breaking for unfair advantage, not limited to written work

Antonyms
  • cite

    to quote or refer to a source properly, giving credit

  • attribute

    to state clearly who created the original work

  • credit

    to acknowledge someone as the source of ideas or words

Grammar Patterns

plagiarise + noun phrase

plagiarise from + noun phrase

be plagiarised + (by + noun phrase)

Usage Note

Commonly used in academic, journalistic, and artistic contexts. The object is typically written or creative material (an essay, a book, a song, a design). The preposition 'from' introduces the original source. The passive form ('it was plagiarised') is frequent in official findings or accusations.

Common Mistakes

He copied a paragraph from the textbook.
He plagiarised a paragraph from the textbook.
'copy' simply means reproducing; 'plagiarise' adds the deception of presenting it as your own work without credit.

Word family

  • plagiarism
    nounB2
  • plagiarist
    nounC1
  • plagiarised
    adjectiveB2
  • plagiariser
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

Plagiarise, copy, steal, pirate, and cheat all involve taking something dishonestly, but their scope and seriousness differ. Plagiarise is the most specific — it means presenting someone else's intellectual or creative work as your own without credit, almost always in academic, literary, or artistic settings. Copy is far broader and can be neutral (you can copy a phone number or a friend's hairstyle without any deception). Steal applies to physical objects or ideas but lacks the specialised academic meaning. Pirate refers to reproducing and distributing copyrighted material (films, music, software) without permission, often on a commercial scale. Cheat covers any rule-breaking for an unfair advantage and is not limited to intellectual property. For example, a student who buys an essay online and submits it under their own name has plagiarised; one who peeks at a neighbour's answers during a test has cheated. A musician who uses a sample without a licence may have pirated; one who copies a distinctive melody without credit has plagiarised.

plagiarise ↗copy ↗steal ↗pirate ↗cheat ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • pass off as one's own
  • present without attribution
  • claim credit for

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Plagiarise traces back to the Latin noun plagiarius, meaning a kidnapper or someone who steals another person's slave or child. The Romans extended it to literary theft — the Roman poet Martial used plagiarius to describe a man who had stolen his verses. The word entered English through French in the 17th century, shifting from the sense of kidnapping people to the sense of stealing words and ideas.