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mimeograph

noun, verb

mimeograph is a noun meaning “A machine for making printed copies using typed stencil, eventually superseded by photocopying” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-I-M-E-O-G-R-A-P-H and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 16 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of mimeograph is mimeographs.

What does mimeograph mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A machine for making printed copies using typed stencil, eventually superseded by photocopying.

  2. 2

    A copy produced by such a machine.

verb

  1. 1

    To make mimeograph copies.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce mimeograph?

  • US

Mimeograph has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-mimeograph.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of mimeograph

  • mimeographs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • mimeographing participle, present
  • mimeographed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is mimeograph?

Mimeograph appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 119,826th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you abbreviate mimeograph?

Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of mimeograph: mimeo, mimeo..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Mimeograph in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmachine à polycopier, miméographe, polycopieuse (machine for making copies), polycopier (to make mimeographs)
Portuguesemimeógrafo (machine for making copies), mimeografar (to make mimeographs)
Spanishmimeógrafo, ciclostilo (machine for making copies), mimeografiar (to make mimeographs)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does mimeograph come from?

A genericization from a trade name coined by A. B. Dick in 1889. From μῖμος (mîmos) + -γράφος (-gráphos); by surface analysis, mimeo + -graph (but diachronically, mimeo came from mimeograph, not the reverse).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).