trite and commercially slick in character; corny.
mickey mouse music.
useless, insignificant, or worthless.
mickey mouse activities just to fill up one's time.
trivial or petty.
mickey mouse regulations.
ineffective; trivial; insignificant
he settled for a Mickey Mouse job instead of something challenging
(of music, esp that of dance bands) mechanical or spiritless
First recorded in 1930–35; after the animated cartoon character created by Walt Disney, originally with reference to the banal dance-band music played as background to the cartoons
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Then again, there was a recent rodent infestation in a concession stand, painting even the best parts of their operation as Mickey Mouse.
From Los Angeles Times • May 31, 2026
If I talked like Mickey Mouse, the thin breathiness that plagued my voice went away.
From Slate • Apr. 18, 2026
The three-year agreement allowed users of the AI application to create videos using popular Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Simba from “The Lion King.”
From MarketWatch • Mar. 25, 2026
"I'm not signing up to a Mickey Mouse T20 competition. This is the real deal," Waugh told BBC Sport.
From BBC • Jan. 20, 2026
There they cooked and cleaned and stitched Mickey Mouse dolls and baseballs, working twelve to fourteen hours a day.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
