meme

[meem]
noun
a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

Origin:
1976; < Gk mīmeîsthai to imitate, copy; coined by R. Dawkins, Brit. biologist

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World English Dictionary
meme (miːm) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
an idea or element of social behaviour passed on through generations in a culture, esp by imitation
 
[C20: possibly from mimic, on the model of gene]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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00:10
Memes is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

meme
1976, introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" (1976), coined by him from Gk. sources, e.g. mimeisthai "to imitate," and intended to echo gene.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary

meme

/meem/ n. [coined by analogy with `gene', by Richard Dawkins] An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. This lexicon is an (epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex; each entry might be considered a meme. However, `meme' is often misused to mean `meme complex'. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.
Example sentences
So no viral thoughts or memes are magically gravitating together.
They hold on and don't let go unless displaced by rival memes.
Cats and failures highlight this list of the memes that have gone mainstream.
And it's one that doesn't even have any innocence to it, unlike the majority of
  false memes floating around.
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