William GrugerAnastasia ThriftRichard DawkinsSam 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
Dani Di Placido, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025
The memes are endless as the LIV Golf star has played awful golf on Sunday.
—Thomas G. Moukawsher, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Apr. 2025
Instead, it’s sparked backlash, internet memes and questions about the city's priorities.
—Jasmine Baehr, FOXNews.com, 12 Apr. 2025
At the same time, the internet was having a field day with another stalwart of Japanese anime, deploying generative AI to infuse famous memes, family portraits and movie scenes with a patina of cuteness by recasting them in the style of the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli.
—Yii-Jan Lin, The Conversation, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for meme
Cite this Entry
“Meme.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
Copy Citation
Share