cardboard
UK/ˈkɑːdbɔːd//ˈkɑɹdˌbɔɹd/
cardboard noun: a wood-based material resembling heavy paper, used in the manufacture of boxes, cartons and signs.

Noun
cardboard (countable and uncountable, plural cardboards)
- A wood-based material resembling heavy paper, used in the manufacture of boxes, cartons and signs.
- Something flat or insubstantial.
- In my experience, one of the most vital times in the life of a piece of fiction is when a character begins to speak, timidly and softly, in one's head. Honest and true books get written when the author feels free to coax and invite that character in. If the author's response to that small voice is...1980 February 9, Andrea Loewenstein, “James Baldwin and His Critics”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 28, page 10
- According to these keyboard warriors, the young men and women who survived the shooting are part of a big hoax, are liars, are mere cardboard cutouts – “crisis actors” who roam the country looking for mass shootings from which to promote their anti-gun message – all being pushed forward by the...2018 February 21, Jeff Pearlman, “Parkland students, ignore the idiots”, in CNN
- Synonym of African nutmeg (“Pycnanthus angolensis”).
- Synonyms:
- African nutmeg
Adjective
cardboard
- Made of or resembling cardboard.
- The thing really looked quite cardboard.1973, Journal of Black Poetry, number 17, page 27
- MUMMER 3 pulls out an inflated cushion with a very cardboard crown on it.2001, Liz Lochead, “Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off”, in Cairns Craig, Randall Stevenson, editors, Twentieth-Century Scottish Drama, Edinburgh: Canongate Books, →ISBN, page 501
- Flat or flavorless.
- The worst of the thing, however, is that the enormity, such as it is, happens to be of a very cardboard and tinsel character.1868, Arthur William A'Beckett, “Painted Ships and Painted Oceans”, in The Tomahawk, page 114
- […]a conventional historical drama -- one of those event-crammed sagas featuring a beautiful, plucky heroine, a mysterious, elusive lover and a cardboard supporting cast of thousands.1999 November 2, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of The Times: A Single Girl Takes On the California Frontier”, in The New York Times (E section), New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC...
cardboard meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
cardboard in Hindi
- material resembling heavy paper
- गत्ता gattā
cardboard in Tamil
- material resembling heavy paper
- அட்டை aṭṭai
cardboard in Marathi
- cardboard, pasteboard
- पुठ्ठा puṭhṭhā
cardboard in Urdu
- material resembling heavy paper
- گَتّا gattā
More languagesFewer languages
- cardboard in Bengali
- পিচবোর্ড picobōrḍo
- cardboard in Telugu
- అట్ట aṭṭa
- cardboard in Malayalam
- കാർഡ്ബോർഡ് kāṟḍbōṟḍŭ
- cardboard in Kannada
- ರಟ್ಟು
- cardboard in Punjabi
- ਗੱਤਾ gattā
- cardboard in Gujarati
- કાર્ડબોર્ડ
- cardboard in Odia
- କାର୍ଡବୋର୍ଡ, କାର୍ଡବୋର୍ଡ଼, କାର୍ଡବୋର୍ଡ଼୍
- cardboard in Assamese
- ডাঠ বকলা dath bokola
- cardboard in Nepali
- कार्डबोर्ड, गत्ता
- cardboard in Pashto
- مقوا moqawā
- cardboard in Arabic
- كَرْتُون kartūn, وَرَق مُقَوَّى waraq muqawwā
- cardboard in Malay
- karton, kadbod
- cardboard in Indonesian
- karton
- cardboard in Thai
- กระดาษแข็ง grà-dàat-kɛ̌ng
- cardboard in Vietnamese
- các tông, bìa cứng, giấy bồi
- cardboard in Myanmar
- စက္ဏူထူ caknuhtu
- Dzongkha
- ཤོག་པང shog pang
Examples of cardboard in a sentence
- I blocked the mittens by wetting them and pinning them to a shaped piece of cardboard.
- The bartender Frisbeed a cardboard coaster to the patron at the end of the bar.
- They used paper and cardboard to mock up the layout for the control panel.
Synonyms of cardboard
Forms of cardboard
| plural | cardboards |
|---|
Origin of cardboard
From card + board.
Words formed from cardboard
Phrases with cardboard
Questions about cardboard
- What does cardboard mean?
- Cardboard means a wood-based material resembling heavy paper, used in the manufacture of boxes, cartons and signs.
- What is cardboard in Hindi?
- Cardboard in Hindi is गत्ता (gattā). See Cardboard meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is cardboard?
- Cardboard can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce cardboard?
- Cardboard is pronounced /ˈkɑːdbɔːd/ (UK).
- What is the plural of cardboard?
- The plural of cardboard is cardboards.
Words near cardboard in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cardboard (page history and authors); पुठ्ठा (Marathi) (page history and authors); అట్ట (Telugu) (page history and authors); cardboard (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਗੱਤਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); cardboard (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cardboard (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ডাঠ বকলা (Assamese) (page history and authors); cardboard (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cardboard.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cardboard.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cardboard. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
