cardboard

/ˌkɑrdˈbɔərd/

/ˈkɑdbɔd/

Other forms: cardboards

The heavy, rigid paper that's used to make the boxes you use for mailing things is called cardboard. Cardboard also comes in handy for crafts and projects in classrooms.

A lot of cardboard is made from several layers of thick paper, so that it's stiff and strong, and protects items inside cardboard boxes. You can also use the word cardboard to describe a fictional character who doesn't seem real: "The mother in the movie was such a cardboard character." In the 18th century, cardboard was known as card paper.

Definitions of cardboard

1. noun

   a stiff moderately thick paper
   synonyms: composition board

   types:

   binder board, binder's board

   a cardboard used by bookbinders to make covers for books

   card

   thin cardboard, usually rectangular

   corrugated board, corrugated cardboard

   cardboard with corrugations (can be glued to flat cardboard on one or both sides)

   paperboard, poster board, posterboard

   a cardboard suitable for making posters

   pasteboard

   stiff cardboard made by pasting together layers of paper

   strawboard

   a coarse yellow cardboard made of straw pulp

   timecard

   a card used with a time clock to record an employee's starting and quitting times each day

   millboard

   stout pasteboard used to bind books

   type of:

   paper

   a material made of cellulose pulp derived mainly from wood or rags or certain grasses

   packing, packing material, wadding

   any material used especially to protect something
2. adjective

   without substance
   “cardboard caricatures of historical figures”

   synonyms: unlifelike

   artificial, unreal

   contrived by art rather than nature