expy

E1X8P3Y4

noun

A character in a work of fiction who is a stand-in for or knockoff of a character from an unrelated work or of a real person.

“I like your novel but your protagonist is pretty clearly a Scooby-Doo expy.”

UncommonScrabble 16

Meanings

expy1

nounexpy (plural expys)

plural expys

  1. abbreviationcontractionContraction of expressway.

expy2

nounexpy (plural expys or expies)

plural expys · plural expies

  1. slanglifestyleA character in a work of fiction who is a stand-in for or knockoff of a character from an unrelated work or of a real person.

    I like your novel but your protagonist is pretty clearly a Scooby-Doo expy.

    3 more examples

    The demon-run Raptor News Network clearly parodies that of the American conservative Fox News Network in both rhetoric and appearance, with its anchorman Bob Barbas being a thinly veiled expy of Bill O’Reilly.

    2014, Jonathon O'Donnell, “Our Demonic World”, in Robert Arp, editor, The Devil and Philosophy: The Nature of His Game, page 120

    The monsters vary from completely original creations to bizarre expies of famous characters and people, […]

    2018 February 27, Amy Nash, “You should be watching Monster Factory”, in Concrete, University of East Anglia, page 21

    […] Thimbleweed Park is an obvious X Files parody with direct expies of Mulder and Scully as protagonists, so a 1990s setting is the natural choice […]

    2019 March 1, Robin Wilde, “The 1990s: A Decade of Adventure”, in Forge Press, University of Sheffield, page 36

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

From a clipping of exported character + -y. Coined by TV Tropes in 2006.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

expy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expy

MLA

“expy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expy. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “expy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expy.

Source: expy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.