mock
part of speech
verb (mock, mocks, mocked, mocking); adjective (mock = pretend, practice); noun (a mock, mocks — UK: practice exam)
meaning for a pupil
1) To mock someone means to laugh at them or copy them in an unkind way to make them look silly. tree →
2) Mock means not real, made to look like the real thing: mock exam, mock trial. tree →
3) In the UK, mocks are practice exams before the real ones. tree →
sense in the lessons
In PSHE lessons mocking someone for how they look, speak or what they like is unkind and can be bullying. In school, mock tests and mock exams help you practise. In stories a «mock battle» is a pretend fight. Phrases: «mock someone», «make mock of», «mock exam», «mock trial», «mock-up» (a model), «mock Tudor».
examples
- It's unkind to mock someone's accent. tree →
- The bullies mocked his new glasses. tree →
- We have mock exams next month. tree →
- Our class held a mock trial of the Big Bad Wolf. tree →
- The architect made a mock-up of the new school. tree →
- Don't mock — everyone was a beginner once. tree →
- My brother has his mocks in winter. tree →
- She did a mock bow to make us laugh. tree →
note
Regular verb: mocked, mocking. Noun: mockery. «Mock» (adjective) = practice or fake, not unkind: a mock exam is just practice. Mockingbirds are named for copying other birds' songs.
In the corpora
- Online cruelty drives real people off social media; memes mocking someone's looks are bullying, even when lots of people share them.
- Making or sharing fake pictures of real people to mock them is bullying and can be against the law.
- They find the Mock Turtle sitting sad and lonely on a ledge of rock, sighing as if his heart would break.
- The Mock Turtle thinks «Dinn» must be a place.
- The Gryphon thumps the sobbing Mock Turtle: «Same as if he had a bone in his throat.»
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «mock» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.