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.
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
Formerly a trademark
How does mimeograph compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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."
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Is it sort of like a mimeograph, where the more you copy it, the fuzzier the image gets?
From Slate ● Nov. 17, 2025
Democrats were essentially broke ahead of the 1972 campaign and dependent on an old mimeograph machine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 14, 2024
Steinem remembers the days in which hand-outs and calls to action were made on a primitive duplicating machine called a mimeograph.
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2023
I enjoyed the July 19 “Doonesbury” on the subject of virtual diplomas — until I reached the last panel that called the diploma a mimeograph because it was purple.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 31, 2020
A beefy lance corporal with a sledgehammer was smashing typewriters and mimeograph machines.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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
“Writers who sought new ways and languages took charge of their own publication,” says poet Jerome Rothenberg in his book about the Mimeograph Revolution.
From National Geographic
Eighteen months ago, he bought a second-hand Mimeograph machine, set it up in his three-room apartment on New York's grimy Second Avenue, and began putting out a monthly publication called Solo.
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.
