cartouche

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A structure or figure, often in the shape of an oval shield or oblong scroll, used as an architectural or graphic ornament or to bear a design or inscription.
2. n. An oval or oblong figure in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics that encloses characters expressing the names or epithets of royal or divine personages.
3. n. A heavy paper cartridge case.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A roll or case of paper holding a charge for a firearm; a cartridge.
2. n. A cartridge-box (which see).
3. n. A case of wood bound about with marline, containing several iron balls of a pound each and about 400 musket-balls, to be fired from a cannon or howitzer. Farrow, Mil. Encyc.
4. n. An oval or oblong figure on ancient Egyptian monuments and in papyri, containing groups of characters expressing the names or titles of royal personages and, rarely, of deities: a name given by Champollion. By extension it now commonly signifies both the inclosing ring and its contents. From a very early date, if not from the beginning, an Egyptian king at the moment of coronation assumed, in addition to his family or personal name, an official, regal, or throne name, which took its place beside the former, generally preceding it, and thus gave occasion to a double cartouche. In imitation of the German schilde employed in a heraldic sense, the cartouche is in English sometimes styled a shield or escutcheon, or more often merely an oval.
5. n. A painted, engraved, or sculptured ornament of irregular or fantastic form, inclosing a plain central space used as a field for inscriptions, etc. Such ornaments were much used during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to decorate wainscotings and the title-pages of books.
6. n. In heraldry, a name given in England to the oval escutcheon often seen in Italian heraldry, and generally considered to be peculiar to ecclesiastics. Italian escutcheons are often egg-shaped; but the shield designated by the word cartouche has both ends equally curved, and therefore approximates to an ellipse.

Wiktionary

1. n. architecture An ornamental figure, often on an oval shield.
2. n. an oval figure containing characters that represent the names of royal or divine people.
3. n. A paper cartridge.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a cartridge (usually with paper casing)