MIMICKING A WORD

The word mimic was first used in Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Act III, Scene II. That's right; it was invented by the Bard himself. But where did this word, meaning "imitate" come from? Turns out it it's an imitation itself- it allegedly comes from the Latin word mimicus, which meant "pertaining to mimes" (Poor Romans! They had to put up with mimes too!), from the Greek word mimikos, with the same definition (this k to c  switch is characteristic from Greek to Latin). This in turn stems from mimos, which meant "actor", and is said to be an adjectival form of Greek mimeisthai, "to imitate". Mimeisthai (probably from Proto-Greek or Pre-Mediterranean languages), as luck would have it, is also the source of meme, which was coined in 1976 (the biological kind, which later gave way to the Internet kind). Throughout all of history, words mimic each other, and mimic​ is no exception.