mickey
n. countablen. a trick or a joke played on someone to make them look foolish. You often hear this in the phrase 'take the Mickey'.
n. a teasing or mocking gesture or remark intended to ridicule someone. Primarily British in usage and frequently appearing in the idiomatic construction 'to take the Mickey'.
Are you taking the Mickey out of me?
He realized his colleagues were just taking the Mickey when they told him the meeting was at 6:00 AM.
While the satire was intended to be lighthearted, some critics felt the comedian was taking the Mickey out of a sensitive political situation that required more gravity.
The proper noun is derived from Mick (“diminutive of the male given name Michael”) + -ey (a variant of -y (diminutive suffix)). The common noun is derived from the proper noun. Noun sense 1 (“Mickey Mouse cartoon”) and noun sense 3.2 (“type of bombsight assisted by radar”) are short forms of Mickey Mouse. Noun sense 2 (“synonym of Mick”) refers to the fact that since the 17th century Michael and its diminutives Mick, Mickey, and Mike have been one of the most common names in Ireland, and that many Irish people are Roman Catholic. Noun sense 3.1 is a short form of Mickey Finn.
Almost exclusively used in the singular within the idiom 'take the Mickey'.
He took Mickey of his friend.He took the Mickey out of his friend.The idiom requires both the definite article 'the' and the prepositional phrase 'out of'.