Meaning

noun a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation)

originEtymology tree English mimemeclip. English meme Clipping of mimeme, equivalent to mime + -eme. Coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Shortened (after gene) from mimeme (compare English phoneme), anglicized as if from a noun derived from Ancient Greek μῑμέομαι (mīméomai) with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos, “imitation, copy”). The…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0