mockery

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English moquerie, also mokkerie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman mokerie and Middle French mocquerie, also moquerie,^[5][3][6] formed from moquer (“to mock”) and the suffix -erie,^[5][7][8] the source of mock and -ery.^[5][7] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from about 1280–1307,^[9] and in Old French it already meant mocking speech, the habit of mocking others and something absurd.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Derision, ridicule; a mocking word or act: about 1439, in John Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century, with the senses of scorn and of a sham or pretence.^[3]

Semantic evolution

By 1500 a mockery was also a person or thing that deserves ridicule, a laughing stock.^[5] Etymonline notes that from the mid-15th century the word was also used of joking and playful pleasantries.^[3] The phrase to make a mockery of, to make something seem foolish, appears in the epigrams of John Davies and Christopher Marlowe, about 1599.^[5][6] Shakespeare used it for a futile, absurdly unsuitable gesture (Hamlet, 1603), a sense now obsolete, and in Henry V for imitation or counterfeit representation,^[5] which now usually means an outrageous travesty, as in a mockery of justice.^[5][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as derision, scorn and sportive insult.^[10] In the 16th and 17th centuries mockage was a common rival word.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1439 – derision, ridicule; a mocking utterance or act.^[5]
• before 1500 – an object of derision, a laughing stock.^[5]
• c. 1599 – to make a mockery of.^[5]
• 1603 – a ludicrously futile or unsuitable action (obsolete by 1883).^[5]
• before 1616 – imitation; a counterfeit representation, a travesty.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Contemptuous or insulting words or actions; ridicule, derision: The new uniforms drew mockery from the crowd.^[4][11][5]
2. A person or thing that is mocked; a laughing stock.^[4][11][5]
3. A false or absurd imitation; a travesty: The hearing was a mockery of a fair trial.^[4][11][5]
4. make a mockery of: to make something appear foolish or worthless.^[11][5]
5. Something so inadequate that it seems absurd.^[11][4]

Word family

• self-mockery

Related words

• mock
• mocker
• mockingbird

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins