This definition comes from the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary; I have
edited it for html format.
caricature
('kaerIk&schwa.,tjU&schwa.(r)), sb. [a. Fr. caricature, ad. Ital.
caricatura, which it has superseded in English. The stress was, and is often
still, on u, esp. in the verb and derivatives caricaturing, etc.]
In Art. Grotesque or ludicrous representation of persons or
thing by
exaggeration of their most characteristic and striking features.
1827 MACAULAY Machiav., Ess. (1851) I. 50 The best portraits are
perhaps
those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
1850 LEITCH tr.
Muller's Anc. Art Sect.13. 4 A thorough destruction of beauty and regularity
by exaggerated characterizing is caricature. 1865 WRIGHT (title), History of
Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art.
transf. of literary description, etc.
1871 FREEMAN Hist. Ess. Ser. I. i. 5 Stories..which..illustrate, if only
by caricature, some real feature in his character.
A portrait or other artistic representation, in which the
characteristic features of the original are exaggerated with ludicrous
effect.
1748 H. WALPOLE Let. G. Montagu 25 July, They look like
caricatures done to
expose them.
1788 STORER in Ld. Auckland's Corr. (1861) II. 207 A pleasant
caricature of Lady Archer is lately come out.
1826 SYD. SMITH Wks. (1859) II.
88/1 You may draw caricatures of your intimate friends.
1883 LLOYD Ebb & Flow
II. 128 His marked features stood out so strongly that it made his face seem
almost like a caricature of himself.
transf. of literary or ideal representation.
1756 Connoisseur No. 114 Their ideal caricatures have perhaps often
represented me lodged at least three stories from the ground.
1841-44
EMERSON
Ess. Nom. & Realism Wks. (Bohn) I. 254 If you criticise a fine genius, the
odds are that you are..censuring your own caricature of him.
1853
MARSDEN
Early Purit. 245 An early Puritan comes down to us as a distorted ca
ricature,
known only as misrepresented in the next century by profligate wits and
unscrupulous enemies.
An exaggerated or debased likeness, imitation, or copy, naturally
or unintentionally ludicrous.
1767 SIR T. MEREDITH in Burke's Corr. (1844) I. 129 You are a
caricature of
St. Thomas, not to believe, till you saw, what I could do in an election.
1839
W. IRVING Wolfert's R. (1855) 166 Where they were served with a caricature of
French cookery.
1860 SMILES Self-Help ix. 251 The monkey, that
caricature of
our species.
attrib. 1845 DARWIN Voy. Nat. vii. (1879) 139 A caricature-likeness
of the Common Swallow.
1853 KANE Grinnell Exp. xl. 365 A rough caricature drawing by one of
the men.
Match 2: caricature see prec., v. [f. the sb. Cf. Fr.
caricaturer.] trans. To represent or portray in caricature; to
make a grotesque likeness of.
1762-71 H. WALPOLE Vertue's Anecd. Paint. IV. iv. (R.) In revenge
for this
epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical
bear.
1760 LYTTELTON Dial. Dead iv, He could draw an ill face, or caricature a good
one, with a masterly hand.
1851 RUSKIN Stones Ven. (1874) I. App. 398 The appointed fate of the
Renaissance architects, to caricature whatever they imitated.
b transf. and fig. To burlesque.
1749 SMOLLETT Gil Bl. 431 It would be caricaturing the peerage to confer it
on me.
1862 GOULBURN Pers. Relig. IV. vii. (1873) 307 The Faith once
given to
the saints is grievously caricatured.
Hence (from sb. and vb.) carica'turable a.; caricatured ppl. a.; caricaturely
adv.; caricaturer (= CARICATURIST); caricaturing vbl. sb.; caricaturish a.
(For pronunc. see the sb.)
1886 Sat. Rev. 31 July 170 A grotesque and caricaturable
ugliness.
1813
Examiner 5 Apr. 223/1 Those caricatured rogues which give eclat to celebrated
plays.
1865 Public Opin. 28 Jan. 104 It is the caricatured crinolines that
have brought their originals into disfavour. 1759 MACKLIN Love a la Mode I. i.
(1793) 10 His manner..has something so caricaturely risible in it.
1758
Monthly Rev. 319 The most eminent Caracaturers of these times.
1758 Monthly
Rev. 319 All the humourous effects of the fashionable manner of Caracaturing.
1859 DICKENS T. Two Cities II. xiv, With beer-drinking, pipe-smoking,
song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe.
1819 Blackw. Mag. V 401 Either that..they are rude or weak,
caricaturish or insufficient.
haroldfs@ccat.sas.upenn.edu, last modified March 18, 1997.