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mime

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • //maɪm//
  • //miːm//

A form of acting without words; pantomime.

noun

  1. 1

    A form of acting without words; pantomime.

    [Silence] demands returning to the self, to innocence and a portrayal of situations as if all the particulars were completely unknown to the viewer. There are no props but the muscular versatility of the human form. Mime is the one thing that truly proves we can be all things.

  2. 2

    A pantomime actor.

  3. 3

    A classical theatrical entertainment in the form of farce.

    The mimes were packed with lascivious gestures and movements, and usually presented erotic scenes, on occasion farcically treated.

  4. 4

    A performer of such a farce.

  5. 5

    A person who mimics others in a comical manner.

  6. 6

    Any of various papilionid butterflies of the genus Chilasa or Papilio, that mimic other species in appearance.

  7. 7

    A unit of imitation in the theory of symbiosism.

Etymology

Possibly from Middle English *mime, from Old English mīma (“a buffoon, jester, mime”), from Latin mimus, from Ancient Greek μῖμος (mîmos, “imitator, actor”), but more likely re-borrowed in modern times from French mime (“mimic actor”), from the same source.

verb

  1. 1

    To mimic.

  2. 2

    To act without words.

  3. 3

    To represent an action or object through gesture, without the use of sound.

    In this game, you're given a word, which you have to mime to the others in the group.

Forms

plural
mimes
past tense
mimed
past participle
mimed
present participle
miming
third person singular
mimes
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).