So, where does “caricature” come from?
The history of the word “caricature” takes us back through the centuries to a time when the Romans occupied Gaul (reminds me of Asterix and Obelix), offering the blessings of civilization to the Gauls but also borrowing from them as well. One such borrowing, the Gaulish word “karros”, meaning “a wagon or cart”, became Latin carrus, “a Gallic type of wagon”. This Latin word has continued to roll through the English language, giving us car, career, cargo, carry, and charge, among others. Caricature, another offspring of carrus, came to us via French from Italian, in which caricatura, the source of the French word, was derived from Italian caricare, “to load, burden, or exaggerate.” Caricare in turn came from late Latin carricÄre, “to load,” derived from the Romans’ Gaulish borrowing “carrus”.