cartoon

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A drawing depicting a humorous situation, often accompanied by a caption.
2. n. A drawing representing current public figures or issues symbolically and often satirically: a political cartoon.
3. n. A preliminary sketch similar in size to the work, such as a fresco, that is to be copied from it.
4. n. An animated cartoon.
5. n. A comic strip.
6. n. A ridiculously oversimplified or stereotypical representation: criticized the actor's portrayal of Jefferson as a historically inaccurate cartoon.
7. v. To draw a humorous or satirical representation of; caricature.
8. v. To make humorous or satirical drawings.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In art, a design of the same size as an intended decoration or pattern to be executed in fresco, mosaic, or tapestry, and transferred from the strong paper on which it is usually drawn either by cutting out the figure and outlining it on the surface to be decorated with a sharp point, or, in the case of a composition, by pricking, and pouncing with a bag of muslin filled with charcoal-dust. Colored cartoons intended to be woven in tapestry are cut in strips, placed under the web, and exactly copied by the weaver; the seven by Raphael, purchased by Charles I. of England, are well-known examples.
2. n. A picture, either a caricature or a symbolical composition, designed to advocate or attack some political or other idea of present interest or some prominent person: as, the cartoons of “Punch.”
3. n. Sometimes written carton.
4. In painting, to make a working design. See cartoon, n., 1.
5. To caricature or ridicule by a cartoon; make the subject of a cartoon.

Wiktionary

1. n. comics A humorous drawing, often with a caption, or a strip of such drawings.
2. n. comics A drawing satirising current public figures.
3. n. art An artist's preliminary sketch.
4. n. animation An animated piece of film which is often but not exclusively humorous.
5. n. A diagram in a scientific concept.
6. v. art, comics, animation To draw a cartoon.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A design or study drawn of the full size, to serve as a model for transferring or copying; -- used in the making of mosaics, tapestries, fresco pantings and the like.
2. n. A large pictorial sketch, as in a journal or magazine; esp. a pictorial caricature
3. n. same as comic strip.
4. n. a motion picture consisting of a series of frames, each being a photograph of a drawing rather than a frame produced by filming a scene of true action, and in which the objects are displaced slightly in succeeding frames so as to give the appearance of motion when projected as a motion picture on the screen. The types of characters portrayed in such films are often similar or identical to those in a comic strip.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a humorous or satirical drawing published in a newspaper or magazine
2. n. a film made by photographing a series of cartoon drawings to give the illusion of movement when projected in rapid sequence
3. v. draw cartoons of