mockery
Americannoun
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ridicule, contempt, or derision.
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a derisive, imitative action or speech.
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a subject or occasion of derision.
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an imitation, especially of a ridiculous or unsatisfactory kind.
- Synonyms:
- mimicry
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a mocking pretense; travesty.
a mockery of justice.
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something absurdly or offensively inadequate or unfitting.
noun
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ridicule, contempt, or derision
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a derisive action or comment
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an imitation or pretence, esp a derisive one
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a person or thing that is mocked
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a person, thing, or action that is inadequate or disappointing
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mockery
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English moquerie, from Middle French; equivalent to mock + -ery
Explanation
The noun mockery means ridicule or making a fool out of someone. Mockery of your history teacher is unwise just before she grades your mid-term exams. Mockery is making fun of or mocking someone or something. The act of mockery often involves copying someone's behavior or speech, making it look absurd, like a parody. For example, comedians often get laughs with mockery, by pretending to be famous politicians and exaggerating the way they talk or gesture. The expression "to make a mockery of" means to make something appear foolish or absurd, even if that’s not the intent — like a trial that “makes a mockery of justice.”
Vocabulary lists containing mockery
"The Tell-Tale Heart," Vocabulary from the short story
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"On Women's Right to Vote" by Susan B. Anthony
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III
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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.
Mockery has often been a useful tool among the many needed to deflate the posture of omnipotence that actual and aspiring autocrats like to adopt.
From Salon • Oct. 17, 2024
There was so much Bryan Goldberg content on Gawker that the editors rounded it up in a greatest-hits post under the headline “The Relentless and Well-Deserved Mockery of Bryan Goldberg.”
From New York Times • Sep. 5, 2021
Mockery of the “current year” argument — especially as regularly employed by comedian John Oliver — has become a meme in some far-right circles.
From Washington Post • Dec. 30, 2016
Mockery erupted on social media over the mathematics, which suggest you could stop a weekly brunch for well over a century and still not quite reach your savings goal.
From BBC • Oct. 18, 2016
Mockery and disregardf This was not the Pyke he remembered.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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.
