Taking the mickey

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Taking the mickey and taking the piss are British slang expressions meaning to tease or ridicule. Also shortened to take the mick. An abbreviated form of the Cockney rhyming slang take the mickey bliss, meaning 'take the piss'. E.g."Stop taking the mickey out of Billy, he's very sensitive and you're upsetting him." Cf. 'take the Michael' and 'extract the Michael'. [1930s] Another new one is, 'extracting the urine'.

An alternate theory of its etymology is that mickey is a contraction of micturition or micturate, meaning urination/urine i.e. piss, "mickey" being a suitable alternative when, for instance, in the company of the easily offended to "taking the piss".

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