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
Opinions, beliefs and points of view
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stereotype
verb [ T ]
disapprovingukYour browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
/ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/ usYour browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
/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
Typifying, illustrating and exemplifying
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stereotype | American Dictionary
stereotype
noun [ C ]
disapprovingusYour browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
/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.
verb [ T ] us Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audiostereotype
disapproving
That unfortunate statement stereotypes all men as wimps.
adjective us Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audiostereotypical
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.