Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cylindrical, usually metal casing containing the primer and charge of ammunition for firearms.
  • noun Such a casing fitted with a bullet.
  • noun A similar piece of ammunition, such as a shotgun shell.
  • noun A case filled with high explosives, used in blasting.
  • noun A small modular unit designed to be inserted into a larger piece of equipment.
  • noun A removable case containing the stylus and electric conversion circuitry in a phonograph pickup.
  • noun A case containing magnetic tape in a reel; a cassette.
  • noun A case containing a ribbon in a spool, for use in printers and electric typewriters.
  • noun A lightproof case with photographic film that can be loaded directly into a camera.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A case of pasteboard, parchment, copper, tin, serge, or other material, holding the exact charge of gunpowder, in the case of big guns, and of powder and bullet or shot for other firearms.
  • noun A case of metal, paper, or other material containing some chemical preparation used in photography, such as magnesium mixture for flash-light or material for developing, toning, or fixing solutions.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mil.) A complete charge for a firearm, contained in, or held together by, a case, capsule, or shell of metal, pasteboard, or other material.
  • noun a cartridge containing a projectile.
  • noun a cartridge without a projectile.
  • noun a cartridge in which the fulminate occupies an axial position usually in the center of the base of the capsule, instead of being contained in its rim. In the Prussian needle gun the fulminate is applied to the middle of the base of the bullet.
  • noun a cartridge in which the fulminate is contained in a rim surrounding its base.
  • noun a bag of woolen cloth, to hold a charge for a cannon.
  • noun a belt having pockets for cartridges.
  • noun a case, usually of leather, attached to a belt or strap, for holding cartridges.
  • noun A rough tinted paper used for covering walls, and also for making drawings upon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun firearms The package consisting of the bullet, primer, and casing containing gunpowder; a round of ammunition (Wikipedia).
  • noun by extension A prefabricated subassembly that can be easily installed in or removed from a larger mechanism or replaced with another interchangeable subassembly.
  • noun computing A vessel which contains the ink (Wikipedia) or toner (Wikipedia) for a computer printer and can be easily replaced with another.
  • noun computing Magnetic tape storage, used for storing (backup) copies of data (Wikipedia).
  • noun 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".

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a light-tight supply chamber holding the film and supplying it for exposure as required
  • noun a module designed to be inserted into a larger piece of equipment
  • noun an electro-acoustic transducer that is the part of the arm of a record player that holds the needle and that is removable
  • noun ammunition consisting of a cylindrical casing containing an explosive charge and a bullet; fired from a rifle or handgun

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of earlier cartage, alteration of French cartouche, from Italian cartuccio, variant of cartoccio, roll of paper; see cartouche.]

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