mimicry

mim·ic·ry | \ ˈmi-mi-krē

plural mimicries

Definition of mimicry

1a : an instance of mimicking

b : the action, practice, or art of mimicking entertained his family with mimicry and comic skits— Cynthia Ozick

2 : a superficial (see superficial sense 2b) resemblance of one organism to another or to natural objects among which it lives that secures it a selective advantage (such as protection from predation)

Examples of mimicry in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Rather than snipping Fanning's polished blonde hair, stylist Jenda Alcorn created a more transient ’20s moment, securing strands in a mimicry of an era chop that halted just below the jawline. — Calin Van Paris, Vogue, "Elle Fanning Proves the Power of the No-Commitment Bob," 27 Feb. 2020 The Quattroporte is a beautiful standout deserving of mimicry. — Jared Gall, Car and Driver, "2020 Maserati Quattroporte S Q4 Is Not Special Enough," 21 Apr. 2020 But people who regularly participated in, or lurked during, such conversations, saw through the mimicry very quickly. — Adrian Daub, The New Republic, "The Rise of the Lurker," 13 Apr. 2020 Grant Cornett for The New York Times Each day along the upper railings of my top-floor Brooklyn apartment’s fire escape, starlings alight and start holding forth in an ever-evolving chorus of clown whistles, clicks and shards of expert mimicry. — New York Times, "Letter of Recommendation: Starlings," 11 Feb. 2020 In other words, machine learning has had a popular QRL model for a while now, and this model began with a mimicry of human decision-making in the form of classical reinforcement learning. — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, "Quantum Mechanics Explains Why You Do Dumb Things," 29 Jan. 2020 Hart's nuanced mimicry of Glover is downright inspired, and the story offers up a few chances for the characters to avatar swap, showing off the actors' abilities to embody the different jock/nerd/cheerleader/cantankerous grandpa personas. — Katie Walsh, chicagotribune.com, "‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ review: It’s one joke, but that joke still works, for now," 10 Dec. 2019 But mimicry might be the key to its survival, even without the fangs. — Scottie Andrew, CNN, "A clever African toad learned to copy a deadly snake to trick predators out of eating it," 21 Oct. 2019 Meanwhile, a few apparent attempts to keep up with high-concept cable and streaming fare come across as weak mimicry. — Judy Berman, Time, "I Watched All 16 New Network Shows. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t," 18 Sep. 2019

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