The word ‘tabloid’ (a combination of ‘tablet’ and ‘alkaloid’) was invented by Henry Wellcome, pharmaceutical and medical industrialist, to describe the easily packaged medicines his company was making.

“The word caught on and became synonymous with notions of compactness and usefulness – to the extent that the word was adopted by the newspaper industry to describe the new line of dailies and weeklies it was printing.”

Observer, 9 Jan 2011