Meaning
Any unit of (originally cultural) information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.
Etymology
Origin: Ancient Greek
Clipping of mimeme, equivalent to mime + -eme. Coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Shortened (after gene) from mimeme (compare English phoneme), anglicized as if from a noun derived from Ancient Greek μῑμέομαι (mīméomai) with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos, “imitation, copy”). The concept was later applied to the Internet by Mike Godwin.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms
culturgenmemeify
NYT Puzzle Appearances
Accepted in 65 recorded puzzles:
- 2026-08-23MBEINTU
- 2026-08-08MEILTUV
- 2026-07-28MDEGINP
- 2026-07-02MEGILNT
- 2026-06-11EGLMOTY
- 2026-03-20MACDEHT
- 2026-02-19MACEHIT
- 2026-02-14MABEGIN
- 2026-02-11METIFNY
- 2026-02-06EAMGCIN
- 2026-01-13MEYTLIN
- 2025-12-05ENAMCBI
+53 earlier appearances in the archive.