What's the difference between an anime and a cartoon?

actually, it's same..
but, japanese call animation is anime..
so, anime is much better then animation ( english )

anime is just a fancy way of saying a japanese cartoon

anime is better....
in art, quality and story line ^^

Japanese vs. English
:D

Anime is not for kids only. It can appeal to any age, gender and taste.
Cartoon is aimed towards kids.

It's becoming increasingly more difficult to pinpoint exactly what 'anime' is.

Outside the US, people refer to it as Japanese, but those lines are blurring. Anime can be anything from small children's shows to animated porn. They generally have ongoing story lines.

Cartoons are more like Spongebob Squarepants, where a person who has never seen it before can dive right in and watch. There's really not much of a point, and little to no plot. Each episode is usually stand-alone. Cartoons are also generally for children.

my own opinion:
anime stands for japanese animation/cartoon, while cartoon can be anything hand drawn and came to motion..

let's see what did wikipedia says about it:
Anime (銈儖銉? Anime?) pronounced [anime] listen (help路info) in Japanese, but typically pronounced /藞忙n瑟me瑟/ or /藞忙n瑟m蓹/ in English is an abbreviation of the word "animation". Outside Japan, the term most popularly refers to cartoons originating from Japan; and from the Occidental point of view, not all cartoons are considered anime. Anime is therefore usually considered to be a subset of animation.

Cartoon (disambiguation).

A cartoon is any of several forms of illustrations with varied meanings. The term has evolved from its original meaning from the fine art of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, to the more modern meaning of humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers, to the contemporary meaning referring to animated programs.

Well in japan they call it anime!!! Plus anime is way better plus they kinda look different if I were to recommend an anime it would be Inuyaha!!! :)

It's pretty much the response of the first poster.

And that's not really true these days either, that cartoons are geared toward kids. A lot of them are geared at the young adults, like Futurama, South Park, Family Guy, pretty much the entire line-up on Adult Swim.

If you want to argue quality, I wouldn't be so hasty on the judgments. I think the original FOX Batman or Spiderman could EASILY outdo 95% of the animes out there. Not to mention for humor value, 80+% of the humor in animes is usually based off unoriginal fan service situations.