carton

Etymology

It is borrowed from French carton (“pasteboard, cardboard”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} from Italian cartone (“pasteboard”), an augmentative of carta (“paper”),^[5][4][3][7] from Latin charta (“paper made from papyrus”).^[5][4] Etymonline traces the Latin word to a Greek word for a layer of papyrus, probably of Egyptian origin.^[3] The OED records the French word for cardboard from about 1500, in Middle French, and for a cardboard box from 1694;^[2] it compares Spanish cartón and Portuguese cartão (“cardboard”), the latter borrowed from French.^[2] The shooting sense comes from the French use of carton for a cardboard disc in rifle practice, recorded in 1851 in a text from Geneva.^[2] The same Italian word gave English cartoon.^[8][2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Thin pasteboard: 1816.^[3][4] The OED quotes the French word in an English text in 1786, when a Scottish gardener's diary reports a marquis's plan to build houses of paper, “or as he called it Carton”,^[2] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1780–90.^[8]

Semantic evolution

According to Etymonline the word first meant the material for making paper boxes and was extended to the boxes themselves in 1890;^[3] Merriam-Webster dates the box sense to 1825,^[6] the OED to 1906.^[2] In rifle shooting a carton was from 1864 the white disc in the centre of a target's bull's-eye, or a shot that hit it.^[2][10][11] The verb, to pack in a carton, appears in 1921, first in the participle cartoned.^[4][3][6] Collins includes the waxed-paper or plastic containers in which milk and other drinks are sold,^[7] and in Australia a carton is a case of 24 cans or bottles of beer.^[12]

Timeline

• 1786 – French carton, pasteboard, quoted in an English diary.^[2]
• 1816 – thin pasteboard.^[3][4] The OED's first naturalized record of this sense is from 1891.^[2]
• 1825 – a cardboard box.^[6] Etymonline dates this sense to 1890, the OED to 1906.^[3][2]
• 1864 – in shooting, the white disc in the bull's-eye.^[2]
• 1921 – verb, to pack in a carton.^[4][3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A box made of cardboard for holding goods: She packed her books into cartons.^[7][6][2]
2. A container of waxed paper or plastic in which drinks such as milk are sold: a carton of orange juice.^[7][11]
3. Cardboard or pasteboard of the kind used to make such boxes.^[6][2]
4. (shooting) The white disc in the centre of a target, or a shot that hits it.^[7][2][11]
5. (Australia) A case of 24 cans or bottles of beer.^[12]

Verb

1. To pack something in a carton.^[7][6][11]

Related words

• cartoon
• card
• chart
• charter

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com