cartridge

• cartage

Corruption of earlier cartage, from French cartouche, from Italian cartoccio (“roll of paper”), from Medieval Latin carta (“paper”). Doublet of cartouche.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑːtɹɪdʒ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) enPR: kärʹtrĭj, IPA^(key): /ˈkɑɹtɹɪd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tɹɪdʒ

cartridge (plural cartridges)

1. (firearms) The package consisting of the bullet, primer, and casing containing gunpowder; a round of ammunition.
   • 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict‎:

     Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behind when they filed through a white aldea lying silent amid the cane, and the Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride.

2. (by extension) A prefabricated subassembly that can be easily installed in or removed from a larger mechanism or replaced with another interchangeable subassembly.
3. (computing) A vessel which contains the ink or toner for a computer printer and can be easily replaced with another.
4. (computing) Magnetic tape storage, used for storing (backup) copies of data.
   • 1983, “Helpline”, in Sinclair User, number 21:

     The program generates a catalogue of the files on the cartridge selected by the user, reads the catalogue into memory and erases the cartridge copy, so that an up-to-date copy is always generated.

5. (computing) A removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices, used for rapid loading of software onto a home computer or video game console.
   • 1981, Communication Outlook, volume 3:

     We would like to see someone market a low-power, text-to-speech cartridge that would mate with the Epson and use its internal battery pack.

   • 2002, Video Game Bible, 1985-2002, page 180:

     Nintendo made sure to loudly trumpet all of the advantages of the cartridge format, particularly the greatly reduced loading times and the sturdiness of the cartridges […]

   • 2015 June 24, “Top 10 Chinese Knockoffs of Foreign Products” (00:01:54 from the start), in China Uncensored‎, spoken by himself (Chris Chappell), New Tang Dynasty Television, via New Tang Dynasty Television:

     Not as good, though, as the PolyStation. Looks like a first-generation PlayStation in a Nitendo 64 box. And even though that bit on top looks like it should take a disc, it actually uses something like a Super Nintendo cartridge.

6. (obsolete) A small paper package, e.g. in an old book about making printer's type: After all the type has been cast: "The Boy will paper up each sort in a cartridge by itself".