meme
Americannoun
-
memes
plural
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of meme
First recorded in 1976; coined by British evolutionary biologist C. Richard Dawkins (born 1941), shortening of Dawkins's original creation mimeme, which was based on Greek mī́mēma “imitation, copy; artistic representation,” but which Dawkins also wanted to look and sound like gene; cf. mimesis ( def. )
Explanation
A meme is an idea or habit that's passed between people and generations through imitation. An example of a meme is the cultural tradition of women wearing skirts. A cultural idea, value, habit, or even something like a tune is a meme if it is picked up from someone else. A meme, which is pronounced "meem," will change over time, like younger kids who want to wear the exact same clothes but who eventually develop their own, though similar, styles. Recently, meme has become commonly used to refer to Internet memes — pictures, videos, or even slang words that are shared between Internet users.
Vocabulary lists containing meme
The Hate U Give
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The Poet X
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This Week in Pop Culture: December 8 -14, 2018
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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.
See Examples For:
It's the place where points are lost and never to be seen again, according to a popular social media meme.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
It’s the use case for crypto, not speculative meme coins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
As a result, Bitcoin is far more volatile than gold, and tomorrow’s price is as difficult to predict as the next viral meme.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
Or, more likely, he’ll just post an AI meme declaring it so.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026
You can’t tell someone a secret in homeroom and not expect that it won’t be an internet meme by lunchtime.
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
To support their claims, they present slide decks filled with graphics and memes on a giant screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
Other memes show investors trying to phone up Dangote to discuss business matters.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Some of Navarrette's most outlandish scenes in "Obsession" have gone viral on social media to the point that they have become memes.
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
The internet has made it far easier to bond with our friends through memes and slang than through genuine vulnerability.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
Many of the silliest ambiguities in the Internet memes come from newspaper headlines and magazine tag lines precisely because they have been stripped of all punctuation.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
“Time to meme like we have never memed before,” wrote Reddit user chance901.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026
After Grimes and Musk split, he memed his way into being forced to buy Twitter for way too much money.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025
By his own admission, it was a bold move, one that turned him into one of the most famously memed figures in India.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2025
But it should come as no surprise that the restaurant has memed itself back to life.
From Slate ● Nov. 30, 2024
After Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis won the event, he copied Dikeç’s memed pose in celebration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2024
As for the spoofing and memeing of the 60-second spot, Trotter said she and her colleagues just “can’t ignore it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2025
In 2020 Sen. Ed Markey fended off his primary challenger—a young Kennedy!—by memeing himself into winning the youth vote.
From Slate ● Jan. 11, 2024
We said, 'No.' They didn't think of the impact that would have on how people would pick that up and start memeing it, and that's what happens with these things.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2022
“As advocates of biohacking, that’s what we do. We advocate for the adoption of biohacking wherever possible, even if it means memeing the desired outcome.”
From The Verge ● Jun. 5, 2021
We might of been mistakenly memeing him in ...
From The Guardian ● Nov. 15, 2016
And when watching the series, there is no question about the skill of the team members, so I was initially a little shocked at the eventual meming of the show.
From Salon ● Feb. 4, 2020
On the left, we spend our time calling out and shutting down, lolling and meming and dropping mics.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 1, 2017
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.
