typecast

English

WOTD – 12 February 2008

Etymology

From type +‎ cast.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪp.kɑːst/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪp.kæst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

typecast (third-person singular simple present typecasts, present participle typecasting, simple past and past participle typecast or typecasted)

1. (acting) To cast an actor in the same kind of role repeatedly.
2. To identify one as being of a specific type because of one's appearance, colour, religion etc.
   • 2004 August 18, Leslie Feinberg, “Rights for lesbians, transgenders, transsexuals”, in Workers World‎^[1]:

     The vulgar anti-communist typecasting of Soviet women as so "mannish" that they might really be males in drag.

3. (programming) To cast (change of data type of a variable or object).

   Does anyone know how to typecast a String in Java into an int?

4. (printing, historical) To found type in a mold.
   • 1967, “Inland Printer, American Lithographer”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 159, part 2, page 116:

     Duensing has elected to resuscitate and typecast faces that in the main might be termed scholarly in nature […]

Translations

to cast an actor in the same kind of role repeatedly

• Catalan: encasellar (ca)
• Hungarian: beskatulyáz (hu)

to identify someone as being of a specific type

• Catalan: encasellar (ca)
• Hungarian: beskatulyáz (hu)
• Polish: szufladkować (pl), zaszufladkować
• Spanish: encasillar (es)

to change an entity of one datatype into another

• Bulgarian: конверти́ране на ти́пове (konvertírane na típove)
• Polish: rzutować