–n.
1. a picture, cartoon, description, or the like, that ridiculously exaggerates the peculiarities of a person or the defects of a thing: »
Caricatures of celebrities appear daily in the newspapers.
2. the art of making such pictures, cartoons, or descriptions: »
His eye for detail made him a master of caricature. The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature (Macaulay).
3. an imitation or rendering of something by ridiculous exaggeration of the flaws and deformities in the original: »
He raised his feet high, as if in a caricature of Germans in a movie comedy doing the goose step (James T. Farrell).
–v.t.
to make a caricature of: »
Uncle Sam is often caricatured a tall, thin man with chin whiskers, red and white striped pants, a swallow-tailed coat, and a tall, silk hat. The appointed fate of the Renaissance architects, to caricature whatever they imitated (John Ruskin).
╂[< French caricature < Italian caricatura < caricare overload, exaggerate < Late Latin carricāre to load < Latin carrus wagon]
Useful english dictionary. 2012.