meme

See also: Meme, mémé, mème, même, mëmë, and me'me'

English

Etymology

Coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). Shortened (after gene) from mimeme, from Ancient Greek μίμημα (mímēma, “imitation, copy”)[1]. The concept was later applied to the Internet by Mike Godwin[2].

Pronunciation
  • enPR: mēm, IPA(key): /miːm/
  • Rhymes: -iːm
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

meme (plural memes)

  1. Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.
    Synonym: culturgen
    • 1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene:
      Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.
    • 2002, Rita Carter, Exploring Consciousness, p. 242:
      Related memes tend to form mutually supporting meme-complexes such as religions, political ideologies, scientific theories, and New Age dogmas.
  2. (Internet, slang) Something, usually humorous, which is copied and circulated online with slight adaptations, including quizzes, basic pictures, video templates etc. [from 1993]
    • 2005, "darklily", OT: Livejournal (discussion on Internet newsgroup soc.sexuality.general)
      I do...but my journal is a mess. It's mostly filled with memes and my bitching about a house I am building.
    • 2012, Greg Jarboe, You Tube and Video Marketing, 2nd edition:
      The idea was to append Keyboard Cat to the end of a blooper video to "play" that person offstage after a mistake or gaffe, like getting the hook in the days of vaudeville. The meme became popular, Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it to more than 1 million followers, and more than 4,000 such videos have now been made.
    • 2013, The Guardian, (headline), 8 Feb 2013:
      Harlem Shake meme: the new Gangnam Style?
  3. (Internet, slang) A myth circulating as truth; something ineffective presented as effective, or similar.
    it’s a meme degree
    jogging is a meme

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Verb

meme (third-person singular simple present memes, present participle memeing, meming, simple past and past participle memed)

  1. (rare, Internet slang) To turn into a meme; to use a meme, especially to achieve something in real life.
    to meme into existence
    • 2016 October 31, Andrew Marantz, “Trolls for Trump”, in The New Yorker‎, retrieved December 2, 2017:
      Scott Greer, a deputy editor of the Daily Caller, tweeted, “Cernovich memed #SickHillary into reality. Never doubt the power of memes.”
    • 2017 November 6, “David Moyes to West Ham “memed into existence by the internet””, in Football Burp‎, retrieved December 2, 2017:
      David Moyes succeeding Slaven Bilić as West Ham United manager is being memed into existence by the internet, Football Burp understands.
  2. (Internet slang) To joke around.
    I thought you guys were just memeing

References
  1. Richard Dawkins (1976) The Selfish Gene:
    We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.
  2. Mike Godwin (1994-01-10), “Meme, Counter-meme”, in Wired‎: “Not everyone saw the comparison to Nazis as a "meme" - most people on the Net, as elsewhere, had never heard of "memes" or "memetics." But now that we're living in an increasingly information-aware culture, it's time for that to change.”

Further reading

Anagrams

Cebuano

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic.

Verb

meme

  1. (childish) to sleep

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English meme.

Noun

meme

  1. a meme

Italian

Noun

meme m (plural memi)

  1. (protoscience) meme

Mandarin

Romanization

meme (Zhuyin ˙ㄇㄜ ˙ㄇㄜ)

  1. Pinyin transcription of 麼麼

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English meme.

Pronunciation

Noun

meme m (plural memes)

  1. meme (unit of cultural information)
  2. (Internet) meme (humorous image, video or other media shared in the Internet)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowing from English meme.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈmeme/

Noun

meme m (plural memes)

  1. meme (unit of cultural information)
  2. meme (Internet slang)

Tok Pisin

Etymology

Reduplication of English meh (onomatopoeia for the sound a goat makes)

Noun

meme

  1. goat

Turkish

Etymology

Compare Azerbaijani məmə, Turkmen määme.

Noun

meme (definite accusative memeyi, plural memeler)

  1. (anatomy) breast

Declension
Inflection
Nominative meme
Definite accusative memeyi
Singular Plural
Nominative meme memeler
Definite accusative memeyi memeleri
Dative memeye memelere
Locative memede memelerde
Ablative memeden memelerden
Genitive memenin memelerin
Possessive forms
Singular Plural
1st singular memem memelerim
2nd singular memen memelerin
3rd singular memesi memeleri
1st plural mememiz memelerimiz
2nd plural memeniz memeleriniz
3rd plural memeleri memeleri
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