cartoon
[kahr-toon]
- 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.
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- resembling a cartoon or caricature: The novel is full of predictable, cartoon characters, never believable as real people.
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- to represent by a cartoon.
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- to draw cartoons.
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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
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for cartoon
Contemporary Examples
But along with the cartoon funk is an all-too-real story of police brutality embodied by a horde of evil Pigs.
As it turns out, though, cartoon curmudgeons get the best, most ridiculous lines.
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 CharmLegs McNeil
November 20, 2014
And The Prize Is Death, a cartoon by Albert Levering, attacks an epidemic of reckless driving.
And in the age of South Park and Family Guy, not much is going to shock us in a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon.
Historical Examples
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 GhettoI. Zangwill
Since his arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon.
Six Centuries of PaintingRandall Davies
But that first cartoon in the schoolboy's periodical was always before him.
While I was laughing over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me.
The WonderJ. D. Beresford
cartoon
- 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
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Word Origin
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
n.
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.
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v.
1864 (implied in cartooned), from cartoon (n.). Related: Cartooning.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper