Mockery or mocking is the act of insulting or making light of a person or other thing, sometimes merely by taunting, but often by making a caricature, purporting to engage in imitation in a way that highlights unflattering characteristics. Mockery can be done in a lighthearted and gentle way, but can also be cruel and hateful. Mockery appears to be unique to humans, and serves a number of psychological functions, such as reducing the perceived imbalance of power between authority figures and common people. Examples of mockery can be found in literature and the arts.

Quotes

  • Fielding Mellish: I object, Your Honor! This trial is a travesty! It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham!
  • Though I were gifted with an angel's tongue,
    And voice like that with which the prophets sung,
    Yet if mild charity were not within,
    'T were all an impious mockery and sin.
  • And bear about the mockery of woe
    To midnight dances and the public show.
  • It has taken us centuries of thought and mockery to shake the medieval system; thought and mockery here and now are required to prevent the mechanists from building another.
  • O that I were a mockery king of snow,
    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
    To melt myself away in water drops!
  • Perséverance, dear my lord,
    Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang
    Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
    In monumental mockery.

See also

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