Art & MusicGreek → English
Cartouche
/kɑːrˈtuːʃ/noun
An oval or scroll-shaped frame enclosing an inscription, and in Egyptology the loop enclosing a royal name.
The Greek roots
χάρτης
khártēs
sheet of papyrus
Literally: “little paper roll”
Follow a root:χάρτης7 words
The story of the word
χάρτης meant a sheet of papyrus and may itself have come into Greek from Egyptian, which makes the word's return to Egypt a long loop. Latin charta gave Italian carta, and a cartoccio was a paper cone, then a paper cartridge for a musket. Napoleon's soldiers on the Nile saw the ovals around pharaonic names, thought they looked like cartridges, and the field name stuck to hieroglyphics for good.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
chartchartercardcartridge
In a sentence
The architect's name sits in a carved cartouche above the door.
Champollion read the cartouche and found Ptolemy inside it.