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Added 10 October 2026

meme

/miːm/ noun

In Latin: mīmēma Coined: 1976, by Richard Dawkins Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about meme at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation).
memes are the cultural counterpart of genes

Origin

Clipping of 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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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