What does caricatura mean?
Caricatura is the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese word for what English calls a caricature: a portrait or representation that deliberately exaggerates a subject's most recognizable features — a large nose, heavy brows, a distinctive posture — to comic, affectionate, or satirical effect. The term entered Italian in the late sixteenth century, coined from caricare, "to load or exaggerate," and the exaggerated portrait tradition it names flourished among artists such as the Carracci brothers and later Bernini before spreading across Europe. In modern usage, caricatura appears in English chiefly in art history, where writers may retain the foreign term when discussing Italian caricature drawings, or in translations from Spanish- and Portuguese-language media, where editorial cartoons are routinely described as caricaturas. Because English already possesses "caricature," using "caricatura" signals either a specific cultural context or a deliberate stylistic flourish rather than a distinct concept.
nounA portrait or drawing that exaggerates the distinctive features of its subject for comic or satirical effect; in English, this meaning is normally expressed by the word "caricature," with "caricatura" being the original Italian form from which it derives.
- In Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese: a caricature — a picture or description that exaggerates a person's features for comic or satirical effect.
- Occasionally in English art-historical writing: the Italian term (often italicized) for the exaggerated portrait drawings that originated in 16th–17th century Italy.
"The gallery displayed a 17th-century caricatura of a cardinal, his nose comically elongated by the artist's pen."
"Bernini's skillful caricaturas captured his sitters' personalities in a few swift strokes of the pen."
"The Spanish press published a biting caricatura of the minister on its front page."
When treating the word as an anglicized borrowing, add -s; when keeping it fully Italian, the plural is "caricature."
"The album contained dozens of caricaturas of Roman nobility."
Every English "caricature" is secretly Italian — the word walked straight out of Rome as "caricatura," built on the verb caricare, "to load or exaggerate."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of caricatura
Caricatura comes from Italian caricare, meaning "to load, charge, or exaggerate," which itself descends from Late Latin carricare, derived from carrus, a wheeled vehicle. The noun caricatura emerged in Italy in the late sixteenth century to describe portraits loaded with exaggeration, and it was borrowed into other European languages — giving English "caricature" and French "caricature" — while remaining the everyday word in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Its cognates include cargo, charge, and cart, all tracing back to the same root notion of loading a cart.
How caricatura is actually used
"Caricatura" is not an established English dictionary headword; writers use it either when discussing works in Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese, or deliberately to lend an art-historical flavor. In ordinary English prose, prefer "caricature."
Easily confused with caricatura
Caricature is the established English word for an exaggerated comic portrait, while caricatura is the Italian (and Spanish/Portuguese) source word, used in English mainly when referring to such works in those languages or in art-historical contexts.