mock-heroic

[mok-hi-roh-ik]

adjective

1. imitating or burlesquing that which is heroic, as in manner, character, or action.

   mock-heroic dignity.

2. of or relating to a form of satire in which trivial subjects, characters, and events are treated in the ceremonious manner and with the elevated language and elaborate devices characteristic of the heroic style.

noun

1. an imitation or burlesque of something heroic.

mock-heroic

adjective

1. (of a literary work, esp a poem) imitating the style of heroic poetry in order to satirize an unheroic subject, as in Pope's The Rape of the Lock

noun

1. burlesque imitation of the heroic style or of a single work in this style

Other Word Forms

• mock-heroically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of mock-heroic¹

First recorded in 1705–15

Example Sentences

I have no intention of doing that, nor any compulsion to write some mock-heroic thing.

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Rhyming in heroic couplets, the poem takes its inspiration from Alexander Pope’s 18th-century mock-heroic work “The Dunciad,” which depicts journalists worshiping the goddess “Boredom.”

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His delivery is important, too, said Seargeant, “because this compliments the mock-heroic turn of phrase with a sense of knowing bluster, which imbues a slight sense of comedy into things.”

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She would be well aware of the extent of her self-mythologizing, and she gave her account a self-mocking, or mock-heroic tone.

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Black recalled the other day, slipping into the booming, mock-heroic voice that serves as one of his trademarks as a movie star.

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Related Words

• burlesque 
• caricature 
• cartoon 
• farce 
• irony 
• joke 
• satire 
• skit 
• travesty