MOCKERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mockery mean? 

• MOCKERY (noun)
  The noun MOCKERY has 3 senses:

1. showing your contempt by derision

2. a composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style, usually in a humorous way

3. humorous or satirical mimicry

  Familiarity information: MOCKERY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOCKERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing your contempt by derision

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

jeer; jeering; mockery; scoff; scoffing

Hypernyms ("mockery" is a kind of...):

derision (contemptuous laughter)

Derivation:

mock (treat with contempt)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style, usually in a humorous way

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

burlesque; lampoon; mockery; parody; pasquinade; put-on; send-up; sendup; spoof; takeoff; travesty

Hypernyms ("mockery" is a kind of...):

caricature; imitation; impersonation (a representation of a person that is exaggerated for comic effect)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Humorous or satirical mimicry

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

mockery; parody; takeoff

Hypernyms ("mockery" is a kind of...):

apery; mimicry (the act of mimicking; imitative behavior)

 Context examples 

During the whole of this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

That it was mockery made the situation more puzzling to her.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Researchers from the University of Granada have established that individuals who frequently use self-defeating humour—aimed at gaining the approval of others through self-mockery—exhibit greater levels of psychological well-being.

(Self-defeating humour promotes psychological well-being, University of Granada)

But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But she divined the mockery in Wolf Larsen’s words, and again favoured me with a sympathetic glance.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned—my life dark, lonely, hopeless—my soul athirst and forbidden to drink—my heart famished and never to be fed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)