cartoonish
Britishadjective
Explanation
Something cartoonish is exaggerated and overly simplified, like your cartoonish drawing of a cat or a cartoonish movie villain. This adjective can mean "like a cartoon," as in the simple, unrealistic illustrations in a kid's book. It also describes things that are over-the-top and a bit silly: "Their cartoonish makeup looked fine onstage, but it's too much up close!" If the bad guy in a film grins evilly and twirls his mustache, most viewers will find him a little cartoonish. The word comes from cartoon, originally "a drawing on strong paper," from a root meaning "heavy paper."
Vocabulary lists containing cartoonish
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.
Mainstream culture’s relatively lower esteem for the Green Lantern is absolutely related to cartoonish interpretations of his power in live-action depictions.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
"They're travelling at such pace that actually the riders' hair is blown back in quite an expressive cartoonish way, to show how fast they're moving".
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Count on the ubiquitous “XX” that typically stand in for eyeballs on the Companion character and the artist’s other dark cartoonish creations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
This can be true even when the AI-generated imagery is glitchy, cartoonish or jokey.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
When she splits the book open, I watch her flip through sketches of cartoonish women, all dressed like futuristic gangsters and armed with some kind of weapon or another.
From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Definitions 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.
