impostrous, a.
(ɪmˈpɒstrəs)
Also 7 impost'rous.
[Abbreviation of imposterous or -orous: cf. monster, -trous.]
1. Having the character of an impostor.
| 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. xviii. 286 He that took th' impost'rous Ciprian king. 1850 Grote Greece ii. lxvii. VIII. 484 Aristotle..gave to the word Sophist a definition substantially the same as that which it bears in the modern languages ‘an impostrous pretender to knowledge’, a man who employs what he knows to be fallacy, for the purpose of deceit and of getting money. |
2. Of the nature of an imposture.
| 1635 Heywood Hierarch. v. 289 Further to speak of his impostrous lies. 1668 H. More Div. Dial. v. v. (1713) 412 The Idolatrous and Impostrous Church of Rome. 1810 Bentham Packing (1821) 26 As of the true and original jury, so of this impostrous modern substitute, the origin lies buried in obscurity. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India II. v. ix. 699 The outcry was groundless and impostrous. |
So imˈpostry = impostery, -ory, -ury.
| 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. iii. xviii. 105 They returne to their houses triumphing of their impostrie. |