Word.ws English Dictionary

copy-cat

copy-cat is the alternative spelling of copycat.

Meaning of copycat

Noun

copycat (plural copycats)

  1. (derogatory, informal) One who imitates or plagiarizes the work of others.
    • And in it all they are merely copy-cats—servile followers of the aristocratic creed, but without the genuine prestige of the old-time nobilities.1899 July, Robert Grant, “Letter to a young man wishing to be an American”, in Scribner's Magazine, volume 26
  2. A criminal who imitates the crimes of another; specifically, a criminal who commits the same crime, especially a highly-publicized one, that has recently been committed by someone else.
    • a copycat strangler

See all 4 meanings of copycat

Forms of copy-cat

pluralcopy-cats

Questions about copy-cat

What is copy-cat the alternative spelling of?
Copy-cat is the alternative spelling of copycat.

Words near copy-cat in the dictionary

  1. copy typists
  2. copy writer
  3. copy writers
  4. copy-and-paste
  5. copy-and-pastes
  6. copy-cat
  7. copy-cats
  8. copy-edit
  9. copy-edited
  10. copy-editing
  11. copy-edits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: copy-cat (page history and authors); copycat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “copy-cat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/copy-cat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.