cardboard
Americannoun
adjective
-
resembling cardboard, especially in flimsiness.
an apartment with cardboard walls.
-
not fully lifelike; shallow; two-dimensional.
a play with cardboard characters.
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of cardboard
Explanation
The heavy, rigid paper that's used to make the boxes you use for mailing things is called cardboard. Cardboard also comes in handy for crafts and projects in classrooms. A lot of cardboard is made from several layers of thick paper, so that it's stiff and strong, and protects items inside cardboard boxes. You can also use the word cardboard to describe a fictional character who doesn't seem real: "The mother in the movie was such a cardboard character." In the 18th century, cardboard was known as card paper.
Vocabulary lists containing cardboard
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wood is expensive, so many families send their children into the street to find plastic and cardboard to burn as fuel to make bread or heat food.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
I covered myself in bits of cardboard, packing tape and foam peanuts and overdid my makeup with several coats of mascara and thick black eyeliner.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
Around that time, an office prankster briefly erected a life-size cardboard cutout of imprisoned crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried—a joke partly about how similar Coplan, a fellow crypto billionaire, is in appearance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
“Too often a place will just send up a cardboard shopping bag with the things you ordered in it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
When we walk in, there are two slim cardboard boxes on the counter waiting for us.
From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
