Definitions
Shared cultural idea, joke, or internet image.
Word origin
Coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Shortened (after gene) from mimeme (compare English phoneme), anglicized as if from a noun derived from Ancient Greek μῑμέομαι (mīméomai) with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos, “imitation, copy”). The concept was later applied to the Internet by Mike Godwin.
Used in a sentence
“Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.”
“Related memes tend to form mutually supporting meme-complexes such as religions, political ideologies, scientific theories, and New Age dogmas.”
“The original Hobson and Jobson stock comic characters have died out as a meme, as has the application of their names to the Muharram in India.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer1 curated clues
01“Internet joke image”4 letters
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