meme

noun

ˈmēm

: 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

: 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

mē-ˈme-tik

mə-

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.

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web A few years later in 2013, the meme inspired the creation of the cryptocurrency called Dogecoin. —

Kimberlee Speakman, Peoplemag, 31 Dec. 2022 From the meme with Tim Tebow or the epic fail of Cody Parkey during the 2019 playoffs, test your football knowledge and giggle with friends before the big game begins. —

Katherine Tinsley, Good Housekeeping, 31 Dec. 2022 The meme was later co-opted by brands like Oreo and Stockholm’s subway. —

Tara Mulholland, CNN, 28 Dec. 2022 The meme says, ‘Cheers to all my haters — Be patient. —

Marybeth Gasman, Forbes, 19 Dec. 2022 The meme showcased four different headshots, which were very different depending on the social media platform. —

Benoit Vatere, Rolling Stone, 13 Dec. 2022 This syrupy rola by the Rancho Humilde compas is the meme manifested. —

Los Angeles Times, 12 Dec. 2022 The meme's caption in the Nov. 11 Instagram post makes the point more directly. —

Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY, 1 Dec. 2022 The infamous Dawson Leery crying meme has found a new (and apropos) audience. —

Jessica Wang, EW.com, 23 Nov. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'meme.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.