mimesis, noun = the imitative representation of nature or human behaviour; any disease that shows symptoms of another disease; a condition in a hysterical patient that mimics an organic disease; representation of another person’s alleged words in a speech.

Origin: from the Greek μιμεισθαι (mimeisthai) – to imitate.

Related words include mime, mimic, mimicry and mimetic.

I came across this word in a post on No-sword about the crazy-sounding Japanese sport of Sports Chanbara (スポーツチャンバラ). When discussing the origin of the word chanbara, which is an abbreviation of chanchan barabara (チャンチャンバラバラ), No-sword says the the chanchan part “is mimesis for the sound of swords clashing”. I hadn’t seen this word before so had to look it up in the dictionary, and I like the sound of it. This is also an example of onomatopeia, something that’s quite common in Japanese.