clip art

noun

1. drawings or illustrations available, as in a book, on a CD-ROM, or in an online gallery, for easy insertion into other material.

clip art

noun

1. a large collection of simple drawings stored in a computer from which items can be selected for incorporation into documents

Word History and Origins

Origin of clip art¹

First recorded in 1955–60; so called because the original clip art was clipped or cut out from a printed page, usually in books of illustrations specifically designed for this purpose.

Example Sentences

Wiener, the author, said it was his “strong speculation” that the artwork was made using computer clip art.

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Another time the coach halted a PowerPoint presentation when a marketing slide featured clip art of a football play diagram.

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Headshots of known terrorists were sprinkled in like clip art.

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Both artists take banal, electronic clip art and render it curiously unsettling.

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But Tomorrow added a visual wink with characters that resembled stylish Cold War clip art — the kind of unflappable talking heads who could make wild science fiction sound coolly plausible.

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