Etymology

stereotype

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Today it means: A conventional, formulaic, and often oversimplified or exaggerated conception, opinion, or image of (a person or a group of people). Full definition →

French stéréotype ← Ecclesiastical Latin typu ← Ancient Greek τῠ́πος (tŭ́pos)
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ster-
  2. Ancient Greekστερεός (stereós)
  3. Frenchstéréo-
  4. Proto-Indo-European*(s)tew-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*(s)tewp-
  6. Proto-Hellenic*túpt͏̌ō
  7. Ancient Greekτῠ́πτω (tŭ́ptō)deverb.
  8. Ancient Greekτῠ́πος (tŭ́pos)
  9. Ecclesiastical Latintypu
  10. Frenchtype
  11. Frenchstéréotype
  12. English todaystereotype

Borrowed from French stéréotype (adjective), equivalent to stereo- + type. 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.