stereotype

Meanings

Noun

• A conventional, formulaic, and often oversimplified or exaggerated conception, opinion, or image of (a person).
• A person who is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.
• A metal printing plate cast from a matrix moulded from a raised printing surface.
• An extensibility mechanism of the Unified Modeling Language, allowing a new element to be derived from an existing one with added specializations.

Verb

• To make a stereotype of someone or something, or characterize someone by a stereotype.
• To prepare for printing in stereotype; to produce stereotype plates of.
• To print from a stereotype.
• To make firm or permanent; to fix.

Origin

• Borrowed from French stéréotype. Printing sense is from 1817, the “conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image” sense is recorded from 1922 in Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion.