Cartridge

How to spell cartridge

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cartridge

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cartridge mean?

1. nounA casing containing a charge and projectile for a firearm.
2. nounA sealed, replaceable unit holding ink, toner, gas, or a similar material for a device.

Cartridge in a sentence

• The soldier loaded a fresh cartridge into the rifle.

• The printer warned that the black ink cartridge was almost empty.

• A spent cartridge lay on the floor of the firing range.

• She swapped the toner cartridge before printing the report.

Where does cartridge come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the French cartouche, a 'roll of paper' or 'paper case', which itself was borrowed from the Italian cartoccio, meaning a twist or cone of paper used to hold a measured charge of gunpowder. Those words trace back to the Latin charta, 'a sheet of papyrus or paper', which in turn came from the Greek khartes, 'a leaf of papyrus'. English took the term in the late 1500s and early 1600s and gradually mangled the French ending into the homely-sounding 'tridge', producing 'cartridge'. The earliest cartridges really were paper tubes packed with powder and shot, so the link to 'paper' is genuine even though the modern word now covers metal ammunition and plastic ink containers. That hidden origin explains the spelling trap: the word sounds like 'car-trij' but is built on charta, and the 'dge' ending must be remembered rather than heard.

How the word is built

• cart- (from Latin charta: paper)
• -ridge (English alteration of French -ouche)