meme

noun

1
: an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media
… the band encouraged fans to make memes to advertise the U.S. release of their EP …William Gruger
The grumpy cat meme frowned its way onto the Internet in September 2012 and never turned its dissatisfied head back. Since then, the image of the cranky cat has grown more and more popular in direct proportion to appearing less and less impressed by fame.Anastasia Thrift
2
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life. Just as biological evolution is driven by the survival of the fittest genes in the gene pool, cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes.Richard Dawkins
memetic adjective
… the exhibition seeks to give a sense not only of Holmes's origins but of the real-world milieu in which Conan Doyle set him and of his memetic spread through the culture. Sam Leith

Did you know?

In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, British scientist Richard Dawkins defended his newly coined word meme, which he defined as "a unit of cultural transmission." Having first considered, then rejected, mimeme, he wrote: "Mimeme comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like gene." (The suitable Greek root was mim-, meaning "mime" or "mimic." The English suffix -eme indicates a distinctive unit of language structure, as in grapheme, lexeme, and phoneme.) Like any good meme, meme caught on and evolved, eventually developing the meaning known to anyone who spends time online, where it's most often used to refer to any one of those silly captioned photos that the Internet can't seem to get enough of.

Examples of meme in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web In what appears to be his first public comment on the litigation, Musk — a notorious fan of internet memes — posted the tears of joy emoji on X in response to a user’s sarcastic remark about the case. Todd Spangler, Variety, 5 Mar. 2024 The character became a meme in its own right thanks to its blatantly non-canonical status, mysterious backstory, and odd, twitchy movements. Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 29 Feb. 2024 Many of the Middleton-absence memes are a knowing way for people to signal their extreme onlineness and laugh at themselves. Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 29 Feb. 2024 The quote has since become an all-purpose meme for the hard and hardly working. Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 28 Feb. 2024 Conspiracy theories, jokes and memes regarding the whereabouts of Kate Middleton have reached a fever pitch on social media, as the Princess of Wales has not been seen in public since Christmas Day, and the internet has grown curious. Dani Di Placido, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2024 And what if the theme was none other than the meme that launched many thousands of headlines about his home state: Florida Man? Patricia Mazzei Jason Andrew, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2024 The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 23 Feb. 2024 Its Easter eggs are all cinematic references, not memes. Melena Ryzik, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'meme.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

alteration of mimeme, from mim- (as in mimesis) + -eme

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler
The first known use of meme was in 1976

Podcast

Dictionary Entries Near meme

Cite this Entry

“Meme.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on meme

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!