webtoon

W4E1B3T1O1O1N1

noun

An animated cartoon published on the World Wide Web.

Scrabble 12

Meanings

nounwebtoon (plural webtoons)

plural webtoons

  1. InternetAn animated cartoon published on the World Wide Web.

    Have a webtoon! Elf Life: http://www.elflife.com

    2001, 11 September, "Rob Cruickshank, part-time human being", Re: Strange ad copy of the day (on newsgroup alt.slack)
    4 more examples

    As Flash Webtoons and animated shorts have become more and more popular, a spate of tools have cropped up to facilitate their creation.

    2006, Ethan Watrall, Norbert Herber, Flash MX 2004 Savvy, page 12

    Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi used Flash animation to bring cartoons (sometimes called online cartoons or webtoons) to the Internet.

    2008, Don Rauf, Monique Vescia, Virtual Apprentice: Cartoon Animator, page 29

    More and more cartoons are made using special techniques with a lot of help from computers. Some people are making cartoons for the internet. These are called webtoons. You could make a webtoon, too.

    2009, Caroline Nixon, Michael Tomlinson, Kid's Box 5 Pupil's Book: Book 5

    When it comes to Flash animated cartoons, also called webtoons, the first noted use was in 1999 when Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi set out to bring cartoons to the Web. Soon after, webtoons began popping up everywhere.

    2010, Michael Duggan, PSP Game Creation for Teens, page 13
  2. A kind of Korean comic that is published digitally for reading on a smartphone or computer.

    We can read a webtoon using an application on our phone.

    2018, WESTECH 2018: Proceedings of 1st Workshop on Environmental Science, Society, and Technology, WESTECH 2018, December 8th, 2018, Medan, Indonesia, page 166
    2 more examples

    Now producing a branded webtoon and adding a webtoon platform to a company's overall promotional branding strategy makes it look in-step with the times and popular culture.

    2021, Brian Yecies, Ae-Gyung Shim, South Korea's Webtooniverse and the Digital Comic Revolution, page 155

    Easy access is another positive trait of webtoons—facile because of the elimination of distribution hassles, […]

    2022, John A. Lent, Wendy Siuyi Wong, Benjamin Wai–ming Ng, Transnationalism in East and Southeast Asian Comics Art, page 104

Origin

  1. Korean웹툰
  2. Englishwebtoon

From Web + toon, dating from at least 2001 (see citations). For Korean comics, likely a re-borrowing of Korean 웹툰 (weptun), itself from the original sense.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Indonesian webtun
  • webtunTranslations
Japanese ウェブトゥーン
  • ウェブトゥーン (webutūn)Translations
Korean 웹툰
  • 웹툰 (weptun)Translations
Cite this entry
APA

webtoon. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/webtoon

MLA

“webtoon.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/webtoon. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “webtoon,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/webtoon.

Source: webtoon on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.