tabloidnoun/ˈtæblɔɪd/

• 1

  archaicA small, compressed portion of a chemical, drug, food substance, etc.; a pill, a tablet.

  • One of the compartments was found to contain some forty compressed tabloids, which on analysis proved to be potassium bromide.
  • A large number of tabloids are contained in a very small bottle, and only require crushing and dissolving in the stated quantity of water to produce a large volume of solution.
• 2

  nauticaltransportA compact or compressed version of something; especially something having a popular or sensational nature.

  • This boat Mayfay has been admirable as a tabloid cruiser and while Sure Mike is about her same size, Sure Mike is far more nicely modeled; she will not have Mayfay's 17-mile-an-hour homespun plainness.
• 3

  journalismmedianewspapersA compact or compressed version of something; especially something having a popular or sensational nature.

  • […] Lyle Stuart, […] is known—notorious would be the proper word—for his publishing and writing in the fields of obscenity and extreme leftism: he puts out a sort of tabloid called "The Independent".
  • A public school in Moperville, where the local newspaper is sold in neighboring towns with all the regard of a tabloid. / We've got a reputation to protect! We can only report on confirmed monsters, like mega hogs, or Bigfoot!
• 4

  mediaprintingpublishingA compact or compressed version of something; especially something having a popular or sensational nature.

tabloidadj/ˈtæblɔɪd/

• 1

  In the form of a tabloid (noun senses 2 and 2.2): compressed or compact in size.

  • 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.
  • [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.
• 2

  Resembling the style of journalism generally associated with a tabloid newspaper: appealing to unsophisticated people, sensational, etc.

  • tabloid journalism
  • 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.

tabloidverb/ˈtæblɔɪd/

• 1

  To express (something) in a compact or condensed manner, especially in the style of journalism generally associated with a tabloid newspaper (appealing to unsophisticated people, sensational, etc.).

  • This "tabloiding" of the latest fashions, we thought an excellent idea. Surely it's not the sole mission of a dry goods ad. to give news of bargains? Would not reliable information as to coming fashions be of equal interest to the average woman?
  • You won't have trouble recognizing some of the much-tabloided originals on whom characters are based—for example, the rather lonely figure of the Italian-American singer-actor-producer-and-great lover.
• 2

  journalismmedianewspapersTo convert (a newspaper) into a tabloid (noun sense 2.2) format.

  • The ‘tabloiding’ of local newspapers has resulted in a ‘dumbing down’ of the local press. The publication of shorter, brighter, ‘frothier’ stories and the increasing reliance on stories about entertainment, consumer items and ‘human interest’ stories, are the infallible hallmarks of the tabloid genre.
  • The first key developments in the tabloiding of British newspapers are defined initially and literally by the shift of the Sun to a tabloid format in 1969 and the Daily Mail in 1971.