Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Stereotype
/ˈstɛriətaɪp/noun
A fixed, oversimplified image of a person or group held in advance of any evidence.
The Greek roots
στερεός
stereós
solid, firm
τύπος
týpos
impression, mould
Literally: “solid impression”
The story of the word
Firmin Didot coined stéréotype in Paris around 1798 for a printing plate cast as one solid block, so that a page could be run again without resetting a single letter of movable type. The metaphor did the rest: something reproduced identically, forever. Walter Lippmann borrowed it in Public Opinion in 1922 for the pictures in our heads, and the printing sense died with hot metal while the other one spread.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1798
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
stereostereoscopetypetypicaltypography
In a sentence
The advert leaned on every stereotype about engineers it could fit into thirty seconds.