Stereotype
Etymology
From French "stéréotype" (1798), a printing term joining Greek "stereos" (solid) and "typos" (impression, type): a solid metal plate cast to print the same page over and over. The journalist Walter Lippmann borrowed it in 1922 for the fixed mental pictures people carry — meaning literally the same impression, stamped again and again.
noun · /STAIR-ee-uh-type/
A fixed, oversimplified image or set of beliefs about a category of people, applied uniformly to its members.
What it names
The mind's rigid template for a group — a stamped-out generalization — that overrides the particulars of any individual.
Example
The film leaned on every tired stereotype of the small-town sheriff.
Related idea
Distinct from an archetype, a universal, often positive original pattern that recurs across stories; a stereotype is a flattened, frozen generalization applied to real people. Compare a prototype, the first or defining example of a category rather than a prejudgment of its members.