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Resemble vs Mimic - What's the difference?

resemble | mimic |

As verbs the difference between resemble and mimic

is that resemble is   To be like or similar to (something); to represent as similar while mimic is to imitate, especially in order to ridicule.

As a noun mimic is

a person who practices mimicry, or mime.

As an adjective mimic is

pertaining to mimicry; imitative.

resemble

English

Verb

  • (transitive)  To be like or similar to (something); to represent as similar.
  • * Shakespeare
  • We will resemble you in that.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.}}
  • * 2005 , .
  • But what you've just described does resemble a person of that kind.
    The twins resemble each other.
  • To compare; to regard as similar, to liken.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.x:
  • And th'other all yclad in garments light, / Discolour'd like to womanish disguise, / He did resemble to his Ladie bright [...].
  • (obsolete)  To counterfeit; to imitate.
  • * Holland
  • They can so well resemble man's speech.
  • (obsolete)  To cause to imitate or be like; to make similar.
  • Synonyms

    * mirror * duplicate * look like

    mimic

    English

    Alternative forms

    * mimick

    Verb

  • To imitate, especially in order to ridicule.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=A better waterworks, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.}}
  • (biology) To take on the appearance of another, for protection or camouflage.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person who practices mimicry, or mime.
  • An imitation.
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to mimicry; imitative.
  • *, II.12:
  • I think every man is cloied and wearied, with seeing so many apish and mimicke trickes, that juglers teach their Dogges, as the dances, where they misse not one cadence of the sounds or notes they heare.
  • * Milton
  • Oft, in her absence, mimic fancy wakes / To imitate her.
  • * Wordsworth
  • Mimic hootings.
  • Mock, pretended.
  • (mineralogy) Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry.