tabloid
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtæblɔɪd/
ipa: /ˈtæbˌlɔɪd/
Etymology: The noun is derived from tabl(et) + -oid (suffix meaning ‘having the likeness of, resembling’), originally coined by the United Kingdom firm Burroughs, Wellcome & Company as a brand name for their medicines and other products such as tea in tablet form and registered as a trademark on 14 March 1884.
Sense 2 (“compact or compressed version of something; especially something having a popular or sensational nature”) is influenced by sense 2.3 (“newspaper characterized as favouring stories of a popular or sensational nature over serious news”).
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: Travellers, explorers and missionaries are enabled to carry the most effective medicines in the smallest possible space by using ‘Tabloid’ Medicine cases as supplied to [Henry Morton] Stanley and to all leading expeditions. ‘Tabloid’ medicines contain absolutely accurate doses of the purest drugs, require neither weighing nor measuring, and retain their activity after exposure to the most trying climates.
ref: [1898 January, Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., “‘Tabloid’ Medicine Cases and Chests [advertisement]”, in J. Scott Keltie, editor, The Geographical Journal, volume XI, number 1, London: Royal Geographical Society, […]; Edward Stanford, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, back cover:
text: [T]he flints of the plateau drifts are neither 'slabs' nor 'tablets,' they are of all shapes from rounded Eocene to hardly worn and sub-angular pebbles, differing but little from the mean of a score of Palaeolithic gravels. This presumed tabloid condition is bought about by a presumed 'Extreme Cold'; which, of course, is warmed into sunshine by the light of actual fact.
ref: 1898 February, W. J. Lewis Abbott, “The Authenticity of Plateau Implements”, in Natural Science: A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress, volume XII, number 72, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent & Co. […], →OCLC, section II, page 112:
text: Wares other than drugs for compounding prescriptions are being brought in; tabloid medicines are being introduced, proprietary and other goods are coming in, and toilet and fancy articles of limited amounts are being displayed.
ref: 1911 June 10, W. W. Masterson, “Druggists’ Specialties in Turkey”, in Daily Consular and Trade Reports, volume 2, number 135, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Manufactures, Department of Commerce and Labor, →OCLC, page 1107:
text: "The Dairy Maid," an alleged song, is really a recitation; a sort of tabloid sentimental melodrama.
ref: 1916 September 30, Josephine Hart Phelps, “Drama: The Orpheum”, in Alfred Holman, editor, The Argonaut, volume LXXIX, number 2062, San Francisco, Calif.: Argonaut Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 218, column 2:
text: Even though people might like their science in cheap and absurd tabloid form, they did like it. The Potter press exulted in scientific discoveries made easy, but it was better than not exulting in them at all.
ref: 1920, Rose Macaulay, “The Precisian at War with the World”, in Potterism: A Tragi-farcical Tract, London; Glasgow: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC, part VI (Told by R. M.), section 3, page 232:
glosses: In the form of a tabloid (noun sense 2 and sense 2.3): compressed or compact in size.
examples: text: tabloid journalism
text: I watched your 6 o'clock news today; it's straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news.
ref: 1976 November 27, Paddy Chayefsky, Network, spoken by Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), Culver City, Calif.: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, →OCLC:
text: Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.
ref: 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders: Making sense of the statistics that riddle our days: The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers about Danger. By Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter. Profile; 328 pages; £12.99. [book review]”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2013, page 76:
glosses: Resembling the style of journalism generally associated with a tabloid newspaper: appealing to unsophisticated people, sensational, etc.
Derived terms: tabloid talk show