Mickey Mouse - Definitions from Dictionary.com

5 results for: Mickey Mouse

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

mickey mouse

–noun (often initial capital letters

) Informal.

1.	trite and commercially slick in character; corny: mickey mouse music.

2.	useless, insignificant, or worthless: mickey mouse activities just to fill up one's time.

3.	trivial or petty: mickey mouse regulations.

[Origin: 1930–35; after the animated cartoon character created by Walt Disney, orig. with reference to the banal dance-band music played as background to the cartoons

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Mickey Mouse

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Mickey Mouse
adj. Slang

1. Unimportant; trivial: "It's a Mickey Mouse operation compared to what goes on in Lyons or Paris" (Jack Higgins).
2. Irritatingly petty: the school's Mickey Mouse requirements for graduation.
Intellectually unchallenging; simple: His Mickey Mouse assignments soon bored the students.
Melodramatic or sentimental. Used especially of popular music.

[After the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, created by Walt Disney.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Mickey Mouse

cartoon mouse character created 1928 by Walt Disney (1901-66). As an adj. meaning "small and worthless" it dates from 1936, originally used especially of mediocre dance-band music, a put-down based on the type of tunes played as background in cartoon films.

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