The Captain’s Log

Stereotype Versus Cliché

A Stereotype…

…is a printing plate that has been cast from a matrix of type. The stereotype allows pages to be printed in large quantities while the original type is reused for other purposes. The modern sense of the word is that of a generalization or idealization that is propagated without change over time.

Cliché…

…is a nominalization of the past participle of the French verb clicher, which means to click. In French, cliché means clicked and describes a click made during the process of stereotype printing. The English sense of the word is that of an overused idiom or an overused trope in fiction. The overused item is clicked. A cliché is a stereotype, but a stereotype is not necessarily a cliché. Stereotype emphasizes the regularity of usage (and perhaps its inaccuracy as a generalization) while cliché empasizes the hackneyed nature of usage.