Stereotypes can best be defined as

a set idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong:

racial/sexual stereotypes

He doesn't conform to/fit/fill the national stereotype of a Frenchman.

The characters in the book are just stereotypes.

Compare

prototype

More examples
  • I think I fit the popular stereotype of a mad scientist.
  • She was the very stereotype of the prim English woman.
  • Adverts are full of stereotypes.
  • The latest series contains a thoroughly offensive stereotype of a gay man.
  • Her plots are predictable and her characters little more than stereotypes.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Opinions, beliefs and points of view

  • Afrocentric
  • agnosticism
  • angle
  • anti-ideological
  • article of faith
  • ascription
  • bubble
  • creed
  • have/take a notion to do something idiom
  • helicopter view
  • heretical
  • hot take
  • idea
  • outlook
  • point of view
  • pole
  • politics
  • posture
  • pretension
  • prism
See more results »

 

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stereotype

verb [ T ]

  disapprovinguk

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/ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/
us

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/ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/

to have a set idea about what a particular type of person is like, especially an idea that is wrong:

The study claims that British advertising stereotypes women.

We tried not to give the children sexually stereotyped toys.

Synonym

pigeonhole

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Typifying, illustrating and exemplifying

  • analogy
  • archetypal
  • archetypically
  • be someone all over idiom
  • betoken
  • genre
  • instantiate
  • mirror
  • Mr
  • Mrs
  • on-brand
  • sum
  • symbolic
  • symbolize
  • symptomatic
  • tantamount
  • territory
  • textbook
  • translate
  • trust
See more results »

(Definition of stereotype from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

stereotype | American Dictionary

stereotype

noun [ C ]

  disapprovingus

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/ˈster·i·əˌtɑɪp/

an idea that is used to describe a particular type of person or thing, or a person or thing thought to represent such an idea:

All jobs can be made to fit stereotypes, but accountants are particularly easy targets.

stereotype

verb [ T ] us

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/ˈster·i·əˌtɑɪp/

disapproving

That unfortunate statement stereotypes all men as wimps.

stereotypical

adjective us

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/ˌster·i·əˈtɪp·ɪ·kəl/

disapproving

I’m not your stereotypical Texan.

(Definition of stereotype from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of stereotype

stereotype

The back of the menu, like the club name, inverted another old female stereotype, this time women's supposed cattiness among themselves.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This article will argue that this stereotype is equally unacceptable.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It was further decided to compare the evaluations of stereotypes by young and older adults.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Not surprisingly, stronglybuttressed social stereotypes are extremely tenacious; nevertheless, they can be a poor basis for scientific work.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Drawings as well as travel accounts were used as a database of ready-made stereotypes for those who used the literature of travel as referential background.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

However, in an earlier stage to collaborative approaches, the user modeling community provided a different answer, namely the stereotype approach.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It is little wonder that many elderly people should try to dissociate themselves personally from the false stereotype.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These essays challenge the stereotype of a male pioneer migration, establishing patterns and decisions that women would later follow.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Currently, stereotypes are always "hand-crafted", based on empirical observations like user type analysis or sales data.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It refers to a supposed subculture stereotyped as uneducated, uncultured and prone to antisocial or immoral behavior.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This is evident when cultural stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophecies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Second, once formulated, speaker stereotypes are amenable to strategic manipulation to the extent that they are consciously grasped by social actors.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Besides deviant, the more popular stereotype of the convent was that it was both unnatural and unproductive.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Is it that feminine girls report more contradictions in contexts where they feel they may be acting inappropriately by violating feminine stereotypes of behavior?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The contradictions and overdeterminations of their construction as stereotypes in the newspapers, cartoons, fictions, and polemics of the period are obvious.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Which of the following is a dimension of diversity?

The dimensions of diversity include gender, religious beliefs, race, martial status, ethnicity, parental status, age, education, physical and mental ability, income, sexual orientation, occupation, language, geographic location, and many more components.

Which of the following is an example of deep level diversity?

Those may include age, race, sex, gender diversity, visible disabilities, and body size. Deep-level diversity includes non-observing characteristics — that is, traits that are not visible. These include attitudes, values, and religious beliefs.

Which term refers to the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures?

Cultural competence is the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures.

Which term refers to the degree of anxiety people feel in new situations?

Situational anxiety is a type of anxiety that is triggered by certain situations. Many people experience this type of anxiety from time to time. For example, you might feel situational anxiety on the first day at a new job or before an important presentation at work.