Meme

How to spell meme

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce meme

What does meme mean?

1. nounA humorous image, video, or piece of text that spreads rapidly online, often with small variations.
2. nounA unit of culture, behaviour, or idea passed from person to person by imitation.

Meme in a sentence

• The marketing team turned the awkward photo into a viral meme.

• The biologist argued that a catchy tune behaves like a cultural meme, copying itself from mind to mind.

• Every meme in the group chat referenced the same television show.

• In his lecture he described language itself as a meme that evolves over generations.

Where does meme come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word was deliberately coined in 1976 by the biologist Richard Dawkins in his book 'The Selfish Gene'. He wanted a short term for a unit of culture that spreads by imitation, in the way that a gene spreads through reproduction, so he shortened the Greek word mimema, meaning 'that which is imitated', from the verb mimeisthai, 'to imitate'. Dawkins trimmed it to a single syllable specifically so that it would rhyme with 'gene' and echo it on the page, which is why the spelling is so compact. The very same Greek root for imitation also gives us 'mime' and 'mimic', which is a handy way to remember the silent middle. In the internet age the meaning narrowed to a humorous image, video, or phrase copied and altered as it spreads online, but the spelling has stayed faithful to its scientific birth.

How the word is built

• meme (coined by analogy with 'gene', from Greek mimema: that which is imitated)