A caricature is a drawing or description of someone that exaggerates their most noticeable features to make them look funny or foolish. Political cartoonists create caricatures of presidents and other leaders, giving them oversized ears, huge noses, or wild hair to make a point or get a laugh. If your friend drew you with an enormous smile and tiny eyes because you're always happy and squinting in the sun, that would be a caricature.

Artists aren't trying to show exactly what someone looks like. Instead, they load up certain features, making them bigger or more extreme than reality. A good caricature captures something true about a person even while distorting their appearance: maybe the president really does have distinctive hair, or your teacher really does have expressive eyebrows.

Caricatures work because they reveal character through exaggeration. When a sketch artist at a fair draws your portrait as a caricature, they might give you giant eyes if you have a curious, observant personality, or draw your smile stretching across the whole page if you're cheerful.

The word also describes unfair or oversimplified descriptions of people or ideas. If someone reduces a complex historical figure to just one trait, they're creating a caricature rather than showing the full person.

As a verb, to caricature someone is to portray them in this exaggerated way.