All 6 Uses of
mock
in
David Copperfield
- 'Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!' said Dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in spite of myself.†
Chpt 43-45 *mockery = something that is ridiculous
- He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes.†
Chpt 49-51
- Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage.†
Chpt 49-51
- Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled 'Mock Turtle', I went in and bought a slab of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for fifteen people.†
Chpt 22-24 *
- Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, and that hanging head!'†
Chpt 49-51
- 'Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,' she says, when I smile; 'but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it.†
Chpt 52-54
Definitions:
-
(1)
(mock as in: don't mock me) make fun of (ridicule--sometimes by imitating in an exaggerated manner)
or (more rarely): just to make fun or to be ridiculous without targeting anyone as a victimThese senses of mockery come together when a comedian pokes fun at a politician by pretending to be the politician and saying ridiculous things. -
(2)
(mock as in: a mock trial) not real
-
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, mock can refer to a way of preparing food. Mockers can be an abbreviation for mockingbirds.