• IPA: /ˈmɪm.ɪk/

mimic (mimics, present participle mimicking; past mimicked, past participle mimicked)

1. To imitate, especially in order to ridicule.
2. (biology) To take on the appearance of another, for protection or camouflage.

• See also Thesaurus:imitate

• German: nachahmen
• Portuguese: imitar
• Russian: имити́ровать

• Portuguese: mimetizar
• Russian: имити́ровать

mimic (plural mimics)

1. A person who practices mimicry, or mime.
2. An imitation.

• Portuguese: mímico
• Russian: мим

mimic (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to mimicry; imitative.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     I think every man is cloied and wearied, with seeing so many apish and mimicke trickes, that juglers teach their Dogges, as the dances, where they misse not one cadence of the sounds or notes they heare […].

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 5”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Oft, in her absence, mimic fancy wakes / To imitate her.

   • And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
     Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
     Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
     Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
     That they might answer him.

2. Mock, pretended.
3. (mineralogy) Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry.

• mime
• mimicable
• mimicry