33 uses
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Definition
ridicule (to make fun of)
or:
something so inadequate it is ridiculous (silly)
or:
something so inadequate it is ridiculous (silly)
- Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it.Book 7 — Song of the Open Road (31% in)
mocks = ridicules
(editor's note: In this case, the author is saying it makes fun of authority because authority is so inadequate in comparison.)
(editor's note: In this case, the author is saying it makes fun of authority because authority is so inadequate in comparison.)
- ...intervals passing rapt and happy, Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of mighty Niagara, Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and strong-breasted bull, Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow, my amaze, Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the mountain-hawk, And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from the swamp-cedars, Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.Book 2 — Starting from Paumanok (4% in)
- 11 As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk, I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird sat on her nest in the briers hatching her brood.Book 2 — Starting from Paumanok (49% in)
- Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.Book 3 — Song of Myself (6% in)
- The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!Book 3 — Song of Myself (42% in)
- ...laughter, At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice through a straw, At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find, At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings; Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, screams, weeps, Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel, Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the...Book 3 — Song of Myself (56% in)
- That I could forget the mockers and insults!Book 3 — Song of Myself (72% in)
- ...after all, that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known, (How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!Book 5 — CALAMUS (37% in)
- No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, Fulfilling our foray.Book 5 — CALAMUS (79% in)
- Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old, From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks beauty and attainments, Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.Book 7 — Song of the Open Road (48% in)
- ...riches, You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an irresistible call to depart, You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you, What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting, You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands toward you.Book 7 — Song of the Open Road (62% in)
- A man is a summons and challenge, (It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?Book 9 — Song of the Answerer (27% in)
- ...mulatto nurse, On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp, There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree; Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an...Book 10 — Our Old Feuillage (45% in)
- You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time, What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?Book 17 — BIRDS OF PASSAGE (48% in)
- You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time, What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?Book 17 — BIRDS OF PASSAGE (48% in)
- The mockeries are not you, Underneath them and within them I see you lurk, I pursue you where none else has pursued you, Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me, The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.Book 17 — BIRDS OF PASSAGE (48% in)
- SEA-DRIFT Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower'd halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to...Book 19 — SEA-DRIFT (1% in)
- ...very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.Book 19 — SEA-DRIFT (48% in)
- ...very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.Book 19 — SEA-DRIFT (48% in)
- ...canebrake or swamp, He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice, Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie, Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and eagle, His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to good and evil, Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times, Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,...Book 23 — By Blue Ontario's Shore.... (23% in)
- What mocking and scornful negligence?Book 23 — By Blue Ontario's Shore.... (64% in)
- 20 O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!Book 23 — By Blue Ontario's Shore.... (95% in)
- ...ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like; (To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, except as it results to their bodies and souls, So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked, And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself, And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the rotten excrement of maggots, And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true realities of life, and go toward false...Book 24 — AUTUMN RIVULETS (71% in)
- ...scholarships, and the like; (To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, except as it results to their bodies and souls, So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked, And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself, And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the rotten excrement of maggots, And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true realities of life, and go toward false realities, And often to me...Book 24 — AUTUMN RIVULETS (71% in)
- Star crucified—by traitors sold, Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land, Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.Book 24 — AUTUMN RIVULETS (88% in)
- Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating, Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them, Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations, With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts, With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?Book 26 — Passage to India (37% in)
- I know not even my own work past or present, Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me, Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition, Mocking, perplexing me.Book 27 — Prayer of Columbus (91% in)
- Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also, Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles, Earth to a chamber of mourning turns—I hear the o'erweening, mocking voice, Matter is conqueror—matter, triumphant only, continues onward.Book 30 — WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH (40% in)
- And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.Book 30 — WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH (46% in)
- Quicksand Years Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither, Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me, Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd soul, eludes not, One's-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that out of all is sure, Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?Book 30 — WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH (58% in)
- I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and know the flames that heat the world, The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers, So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death; Love, that is all the earth to lovers—love, that mocks time and space, Love, that is day and night—love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love.Book 32 — FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT (29% in)
- ...his conceal'd hut;) O the strange fascination of these half-known half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake, The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon, singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd corn, slender, flapping, bright...Book 32 — FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT (46% in)
- Thou, like the parti-colored world itself—like infinite, teeming, mocking life!Book 34 — SANDS AT SEVENTY (30% in)
There are no more uses of "mockery" in Leaves of Grass.
Typical Usage
(best examples)