Mime

How to spell mime

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mime

What does mime mean?

1. nounA performer who conveys a story or idea through silent gesture and movement, or the theatrical art itself.
2. verbTo act out something using silent gestures and movements rather than words.

Mime in a sentence

• noun

  A street mime entertained the crowd outside the gallery.

• verb

  He tried to mime the action of opening a heavy door.

• noun

  The festival featured a mime who pretended to climb an invisible rope.

• verb

  The children could mime brushing their teeth during the game.

Where does mime come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek mimos, which meant an imitator or an actor, and also named a kind of farcical stage play that relied on exaggerated imitation of everyday people. Latin borrowed it as mimus, keeping both the sense of the performer and the comic sketch he performed. From there it passed into French as mime and entered English in the seventeenth century, at first describing the buffoon-style entertainer of classical theatre. Over time the meaning narrowed to the now familiar idea of a silent performer who tells a story through gesture and facial expression alone. The same Greek root survives in relatives such as mimic and pantomime, and the short, tidy spelling, just four letters with a silent final e, is a clue to its compact classical ancestry.

How the word is built

• mim- (from Greek mimos: imitator, actor)
• -e