<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group: Cowboys and Indians are American stereotypes.</li><li>a set form; convention: Most important for lexicographers are the idiomatic stereotypes whose meaning cannot be inferred from knowledge of the meanings of the individual items.</li><li>Printing. a process, now often replaced by more advanced methods, for making metal printing plates by taking a mold of composed type or the like in papier-mâché or other material and then taking from this mold a cast in type metal.</li><li>a plate made by this process.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used with object) to characterize or regard as a stereotype: The actor has been stereotyped as a villain.</li><li>Synonyms: typecast, label, categorize.</li><li>to give a fixed form to.</li><li>Printing. to make a stereotype of.</li></ul>