meme

Meaning

Noun

1. Any unit of (originally 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.
2. Media, usually humorous, which is copied and circulated online with slight adaptations, such as basic pictures, video templates, etc.
3. A specific instance of a meme, such as an image macro or a video, often with humorous superimposed text.
4. Something not to be taken seriously; a joke.
5. A work produced and shared in response to a prompt or suggestion within an online group.

Verb

1. To create and use humorous memes.
2. To turn into a meme; to use a meme, especially to achieve a goal in real life.
3. To joke around.

Synonyms

theory

Pronounced as (IPA)

/miːm/

Etymology

Shortened from mimeme, equivalent to mime + -eme.
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.