cartoon

[kahr-toon]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR cartoon ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a sketch or drawing, usually humorous, as in a newspaper or periodical, symbolizing, satirizing, or caricaturing some action, subject, or person of popular interest.

comic strip.

animated cartoon.

Fine Arts. a full-scale design for a picture, ornamental motif or pattern, or the like, to be transferred to a fresco, tapestry, etc.

adjective

resembling a cartoon or caricature: The novel is full of predictable, cartoon characters, never believable as real people.

verb (used with object)

to represent by a cartoon.

verb (used without object)

to draw cartoons.

Origin of cartoon

1665–75; < Italian cartone pasteboard, stout paper, a drawing on such paper, equivalent to cart(a) paper (see carte) + -one augmentative suffix

Related formscar·toon·ish, adjectivecar·toon·ist, nounun·car·tooned, adjective

Can be confusedburlesque caricature cartoon parody satire (see synonym study at burlesque) (see synonym study at satire)carton cartoon

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for cartoon

sketch, caricature, satire, animation, drawing, parody, lampoon, representation, takeoff

Examples from the Web for cartoon

Contemporary Examples of cartoon

But along with the cartoon funk is an all-too-real story of police brutality embodied by a horde of evil Pigs.
‘Black Dynamite’ Presents Police Brutality: The Musical
Stereo Williams
January 9, 2015
As it turns out, though, cartoon curmudgeons get the best, most ridiculous lines.
‘Downton Abbey’ Review: A Fire, Some Sex, and Sad, Sad Edith
Kevin Fallon
January 5, 2015
You know the cartoon segment that used to be in colour in rancid old newspapers?
The Rancid Ballad of Johnny Rotten: His Memoir Seethes With Anger—And Charm
Legs McNeil
November 20, 2014
And The Prize Is Death, a cartoon by Albert Levering, attacks an epidemic of reckless driving.
The Magazine That Made—and Unmade—Politicians
Anthony Haden-Guest
November 2, 2014
And in the age of South Park and Family Guy, not much is going to shock us in a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon.
Is ‘Tom and Jerry’ Really Racist?
Lizzie Crocker
October 2, 2014

Historical Examples of cartoon

On the other hand, no cartoon I ever drew for Punch was more popular.
The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Harry Furniss
Nay, nay, the cartoon of the Congress shall bring itself to pass.
Dreamers of the Ghetto
I. Zangwill
Since his arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon.
Six Centuries of Painting
Randall Davies
But that first cartoon in the schoolboy's periodical was always before him.
The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893
Various
While I was laughing over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me.
The Wonder
J. D. Beresford

British Dictionary definitions for cartoon

cartoon

noun

a humorous or satirical drawing, esp one in a newspaper or magazine, concerning a topical event

Also called: comic strip a sequence of drawings in a newspaper, magazine, etc, relating a comic or adventurous situation

See animated cartoon

a full-size preparatory sketch for a fresco, tapestry, mosaic, etc, from which the final work is traced or copied

Derived Formscartoonist, noun

Word Origin for cartoon

C17: from Italian cartone pasteboard, sketch on stiff paper; see carton

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for cartoon

1670s, "a drawing on strong paper (used as a model for another work)," from French carton, from Italian cartone "strong, heavy paper, pasteboard," thus "preliminary sketches made by artists on such paper" (see carton). Extension to comical drawings in newspapers and magazines is 1843.

Punch has the benevolence to announce, that in an early number of his ensuing Volume he will astonish the Parliamentary Committee by the publication of several exquisite designs, to be called Punch's Cartoons! ["Punch," June 24, 1843]

Also see -oon.

1864 (implied in cartooned), from cartoon (n.). Related: Cartooning.