-
mimeograph
mimeographnouna printing machine with an ink-fed drum, around which a cut waxed stencil is placed and which rotates as successive sheets of paper are fed into it.
-
Mimeograph
Mimeographnounan office machine for printing multiple copies of text or line drawings from an inked drum to which a cut stencil is fixed
mimeograph
Americannoun
-
a printing machine with an ink-fed drum, around which a cut waxed stencil is placed and which rotates as successive sheets of paper are fed into it.
-
a copy made from a mimeograph.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
an office machine for printing multiple copies of text or line drawings from an inked drum to which a cut stencil is fixed
-
a copy produced by this machine
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mimeograph
Formerly a trademark
Compare meaning
How does mimeograph compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A mimeograph is an old-fashioned copy machine. Mimeographs were often used for making classroom copies in schools before photocopying became inexpensive in the mid- to late-20th century. A mimeograph printed copies by pressing ink through a stencil onto paper, which was pulled by a crank through a system of rollers. The copies themselves were often also called mimeographs. Even after the invention of modern photocopiers, mimeographs were a popular way to make cheap copies, and many offices still had the machines as late as the 1990s. The root of mimeograph is the Greek mimeisthai, "to mimic, represent, or imitate."
Vocabulary lists containing mimeograph
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The book concludes with Jophan's discovery of "The Magic Mimeograph" which "… will produce the Perfect Fanzine … and now the song of the trumpets filled the air, ringing across Trufandom to the far mountains".
From The Guardian • Aug. 13, 2012
Mimeograph presses functioned as incubators for some of the most important writers in mid-20th century literature.
From National Geographic
He was also pointing up an old Washington custom: ghostwriters had become as much a part of the furniture of modern government as the Mimeograph machine.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
The spirit of DIY publishing that grew out of the Mimeograph Revolution flourished into the 1980s, when handmade fanzines permeated the punk music scene and feminist movements.
From National Geographic
Mimeograph, mim′ē-ō-graf, n. an apparatus in which a thin fibrous paper coated with paraffin is used as a stencil for reproducing copies of written or printed matter.—v.t. to reproduce such by this means.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various
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.