MIMICRY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Mimicry

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/mˈɪmɪkri/ Listen

noun

Mimicry n.

The act or practice of one who mimics; ludicrous imitation for sport or ridicule.

(Biol.) Protective resemblance; the resemblance which certain animals and plants exhibit to other animals and plants or to the natural objects among which they live, a characteristic which serves as their chief means of protection against enemies; imitation; mimesis; mimetism.

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Etymology of 'Mimicry'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mimicry" Quotes from Famous Books

... these savages, and we would also charitably believe him at least half ashamed of having to employ them at all, when he saw them brandishing their tomahawks over the heads of imaginary victims; beheld them twisting their bodies about in hideous contortions, in mimicry of tortured prisoners; or heard them howling, like wild beasts, their cry of triumph when the scalp is torn from ...

— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... so that he is supposed to give free music-lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best. No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the black abyss as if chimneys were made ...

— The California Birthday Book • Various

... always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house, and was known in all the studios in the quarter—in brief, Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as would scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had the latter known ...

— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... every way. Amongst them Wright and Paul Bedford. Such companions as these are not to be met with twice, each with his individuality, while the two in combination were incomparable. They kept one in a perpetual state of laughter. Paul was irresistible in his drollery, and whether it was mimicry or original humour, you could not but revel in ...

— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... our dreamy eyes Where our reflection lies Steeped in the sea, And, in an endless fit Of languor, smile on it And its sweet mimicry. Where ...

— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

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