take the mickey
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to tease or mock someone
Literally: take the Mickey Mouse
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Now you can imagine with a little van that size the policeman thought he was taking the mickey.
Lucy and your mother comes to take the mickey don't she?
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “take the mickey” mean?
to tease or mock someone Literally: take the Mickey Mouse
Is “take the mickey” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.