Etymograph

English

stereotype

Stereotype comes from French stéréotype, and goes back to type.

  1. Frenchc. 1600–presenttype
  2. French, derivedc. 1600–presentstéréotype
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1817stereotype

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history not traced here.

Lineage

  1. Frenchc. 1600–presenttype
  2. French, derivedc. 1600–presentstéréotype
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1817stereotype

Earliest quotation: 1817, G. O. P. T., London: […] Nichols: “At the present Epoch (1800), the art of Printing…”

Formed from stereo- + type

Proto-Indo-European *ster- ‘barren, infertile’

Ancient Greek στερεός ‘firm, solid’

English stereo-

Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewp- ‘to push’

Ancient Greek τύπτω ‘to strike’

Ancient Greek τύπος ‘mark’

Latin typus

Middle English type ‘symbol’

English type

The story

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.

Every English word from French type

Today it means

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

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / French type / stereotype

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