LESS gives us the oportunity to use an existing class or ids and apply all its styles directly to another selector.

Example:-

#circle{
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

#small-circle{
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  #circle
}

#big-circle{
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  #circle
}

Which give the following CSS ouput:

#circle {
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}
#small-circle {
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}
#big-circle {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

If you dont want the mixin to appear as a rule in the CSS you can place parentheses after it:

#circle(){
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

#small-circle{
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  #circle
}

#big-circle{
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  #circle
}

Which results in:

#small-circle {
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}
#big-circle {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

Another thing, mixins can do is receive parameters. In the following example we add an argument for the width and height of our circles, with a default value of 25 pixels.

#circle(@size: 25px){
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
  width: @size;
  height: @size;
}

#small-circle{
  #circle
}

#big-circle{
  #circle(100px)
}

This will create a small circle 2525 and a big one 100100 pixels.

#small-circle {
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
  width: 25px;
  height: 25px;
}
#big-circle {
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border-radius: 100%;
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
}