stereotype

What it means

1. countableuncountableA conventional, formulaic, and often oversimplified or exaggerated conception, opinion, or image of (a person or a group of people).

   Not all Zumbetonians wear plimsolls. That's just a stereotype.

   5 more examples

   Instead we notice a trait which marks a well known type, and fill in the rest of the picture by means of the stereotypes we carry about in our heads.

   1922, Walter Lippmann, chapter VI, in Public Opinion

   Anthropologists studying aid agencies have found that stereotypes and deindividualization are endemic among those in refugee work. It may be inevitable that large assistance organizations tend to objectify, simplify, and universalize the people under their care.

   2002, Ted C. Lewellen, The Anthropology of Globalization, page 178

   So, although to some observers machine music implies a harsh metronomicity – and some sectors of electronic dance music might be the stereotype here – computers can also be the means of investigating human expression.

   2010, Nicholas Collins, Nick Collins, Introduction to Computer Music

   “Psychotherapists are not immune to the same stereotypes that we all have, and I think they could become even more relevant for psychotherapists than for other professions [both medical and nonmedical], because they are embarking on this intimate, potentially long-term relationship with these [clients],” said Heather Kugelmass, a doctoral student in sociology at Princeton University. Kugelmass is the author of the study (PDF), which was published Wednesday in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

   2016 June 1, Carina Storrs, “Therapists often discriminate against black and poor patients, study finds”, in CNN

   Heartwarming: Trans girl breaks stereotypes by being the worst on the girls swim team

   2019 December 18, @WYKLOisREAL, Twitter, archived from the original on 22 Mar 2022

2. countableuncountablehuman sciencesA person who is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.
3. countableuncountablemediaA metal printing plate cast from a matrix moulded from a raised printing surface.

   Synonyms: cliché

In a sentence

Not all Zumbetonians wear plimsolls. That's just a stereotype.

Where it comes from

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. Englishstereotype

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.