mimic - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Latin mīmicus, from Ancient Greek μῑμικός (mīmikós, “belonging to mimes”), from μῖμος (mîmos, “imitator, actor”); see mime.

mimic (third-person singular simple present mimics, present participle mimicking, simple past and past participle mimicked)

  1. (transitive) To imitate, especially in order to ridicule.
    • 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist‎[1], volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):
      An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.
  2. (biology, transitive) To take on the appearance of another, for protection or camouflage.

to imitate, especially in order to ridicule — see also imitate

mimic (plural mimics)

  1. A person who practices mimicry; especially:
    1. A mime.
    2. A comic who does impressions.
      Synonym: impressionist
  2. An entity that mimics another entity, such as a disease that resembles another disease in its signs and symptoms; see the great imitator.
  3. An imitation.
  4. (fantasy, roleplaying games) A fictional monster able to disguise itself as an inanimate object, commonly a treasure chest, often with the intent of luring adventurers into a trap.

mimic (not comparable)

  1. Pertaining to mimicry; imitative.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
      I think every man is cloied and wearied, with seeing so many apish and mimicke trickes, that juglers teach their Dogges, as the dances, where they misse not one cadence of the sounds or notes they heare […].
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      Oft, in her absence, mimic fancy wakes / To imitate her.
    • 1800, William Wordsworth, There was a Boy:
      And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
      Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
      Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
      Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
      That they might answer him.
  2. Mock, pretended.
  3. (mineralogy) Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry.

Borrowed from French mimique.

mimic m or n (feminine singular mimică, masculine plural mimici, feminine/neuter plural mimice)

  1. mimic