mock-heroic

American  

[mok-hi-roh-ik] / ˈmɒk hɪˈroʊ ɪk /

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.

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noun

1. an imitation or burlesque of something heroic.

mock-heroic British  

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

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noun

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

Other Word Forms

• mock-heroically adverb

Etymology

Origin of mock-heroic

First recorded in 1705–15

Example Sentences

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.”

From Washington Times • Oct. 1, 2021

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.”

From Reuters • Jul. 23, 2019

Anyone still donning anything is living in a mock-heroic fantasy.

From The Guardian • May 26, 2019

This is a mock-heroic work of history — or at least cultural anthropology — constructed by scholarly narrators sometime near the end of the third millennium, long after humanity has finally settled into peaceful rationality.

From Washington Post • Sep. 1, 2015

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

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

Related Words

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