caricatures 1 of 2

plural of caricature
1
as in parodies
a poor, insincere, or insulting imitation of something that TV network's reporting is a mere caricature of real journalism

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2
as in spoofs
a work that imitates and exaggerates another work for comic effect the artist creates caricatures of famous paintings by replacing humans with cats

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3

caricatures

2 of 2

verb

present tense third-person singular of caricature

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of caricatures
Noun
Instead of digging into the details of personality and circumstance — this school has a specific class for Shakespeare and also English teachers who are literature-hating caricatures? — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 28 Sep. 2026 Last month, retailer Target pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves after widespread social media backlash, apologizing for selling a garment that critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures. — Dave Collins, Los Angeles Times, 21 Sep. 2026 In August, discount retailer Target stopped selling a children's Halloween costume that some critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures, The Associated Press reported. — Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 21 Sep. 2026 Guests lined up to have caricatures drawn or waited patiently by the bar for a dirty martini or a margarita. — Leigh Nordstrom, Footwear News, 15 Sep. 2026 Civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, condemned the outfit as resembling historical anti-Jewish caricatures. — Alejandro Avila Outkick, FOXNews.com, 14 Sep. 2026 The store pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves Monday after widespread social media backlash over a garment that critics said evoked painful memories of racist minstrel caricatures. — Leonard Greene, New York Daily News, 6 Sep. 2026 There’s no outrageous violence or unpleasant caricatures, and the 157-minute runtime feels breezy. — Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Sep. 2026 Retailer Target pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves Monday after widespread social media backlash, apologizing for selling a garment critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures. — Nancy Jiang, Fortune, 26 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for caricatures
Noun
  • The name of the collection parodies the seriousness of the museum, even as the collection itself is the kind of thing that has traditionally gotten scant attention within actual institutions.
    — Brian Boucher, ARTnews.com, 30 Sep. 2026
  • His high-water mark was without a doubt the United Way commercial, one of the best commercial parodies of the last 25 years.
    — Matt Reigle OutKick, FOXNews.com, 9 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • It's been a great couple of years for horror movies, which means that the time was right for the return of horror spoofs.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 26 Aug. 2026
  • The goofy sketch comedies and homemade spoofs that once filled his channel gradually disappeared, replaced by melancholy short films and bleak monologues.
    — Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 27 June 2026
Noun
  • Staffers for major political figures have puzzled over the content, and are growing concerned about the rise of a new wave of videos with errors, exaggerations, misleading comments, and a tone that can be downright weird.
    — Max Tani, semafor.com, 2 Sep. 2026
  • Distracting from real issues These conspiracy theories are more than exaggerations for a broader audience.
    — Aaron Coy Moulton, The Conversation, 7 Aug. 2026
Verb
  • Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is designed as an action flick as well as a portrait of a family dealing with tragedy and an insider’s look at an insular community that mocks harmful stereotypes without perpetrating them.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 28 Sep. 2026
  • And finally, another one of Wang’s creations mocks Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine’s infamously cringe sexts by showing the pop star losing his mind to a picture of Jolly’s derriere in an Instagram DM.
    — Frank Landymore, Futurism, 24 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • Television’s rise forced it to reinvent itself by introducing live disc jockeys who played music and told jokes.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 2 Oct. 2026
  • As a teenager, Davidson would sit in the back of the bus and write jokes on his way to and from basketball games and try them on his teammates.
    — Marlow Stern, Variety, 30 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • Feminine geometric openwork embroideries on powder-pink dresses and shorts and cashmere and silk knits reflected Kiton’s craftsmanship.
    — Martino Carrera, Footwear News, 28 Sep. 2026
  • Her scrolled embroideries have since been described as tirades, rants, and screeds—no horses or cables, just the language pummeling the eye.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Aug. 2026
Verb
  • Constantin Brâncuși’s marble-and-limestone sculpture L’oiseau (1923/1947), for example, commands the space, while Wolfgang Tillmans’s 2022 photograph tree filling window imitates an open window in a closed space.
    — Hikmat Mohammed, ARTnews.com, 2 Oct. 2026
  • Over the weekend, movie-theater chain AMC Entertainment accused Robinhood of creating an unauthorized market that imitates trading in AMC shares through its overseas platform without the company’s approval.
    — Camila Grigera Naón, Fortune, 10 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • Robby stayed home, measuring the time between clusters of seizures in video games and cartoons.
    — Lizz Schumer, PEOPLE, 19 Sep. 2026
  • Betty Boop and Minnie Mouse bounced from frame to frame in the cartoons.
    — Sebastian Smee, The Atlantic, 16 Sep. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Caricatures.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/caricatures. Accessed 4 Oct. 2026.

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