Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Being a feature that helps to distinguish a person or thing; distinctive.
- noun A feature that helps to identify, tell apart, or describe recognizably; a distinguishing mark or trait.
- noun Mathematics The integral part of a logarithm as distinguished from the mantissa.
- noun Mathematics The least number of times the multiplicative identity in a ring needs to be added to itself to reach the additive identity, or, if the additive identity is never reached, zero. The integers have a characteristic of zero; the integers modulo 12 have a characteristic of 12.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character; exhibiting the peculiar qualities of a person or thing; peculiar; distinctive: as, a characteristic distinction; with characteristic generosity, he emptied his purse.
- Relative to a characteristic or characteristics in sense II., 2 or .
- noun That which serves to characterize, or which constitutes or indicates the character; anything that distinguishes one person or thing or place from another; a distinctive feature.
- noun In mathematics: The index or integer part of an artificial or Briggsian logarithm. See
logarithm . A number, one of a set of numbers, μ, ν, etc., referring to an i-way spread of figures of a given kind, and such that the number of these figures which satisfy any i-fold condition is equal to aμ +bν +, etc., where a, b, etc., are whole numbers depending upon the nature of this condition. This definition, given by Schubert in 1879, is a generalization of that given by Chasles in 1864. Any number related in a remarkable way to a figure: a use of the term not allowed by careful writers, A number referring to a higher singularity of an algebraical curve or surface, and expressing how many simple singularities of a given kind it replaces, The rational integral function (in its lowest terms) whose vanishing expresses the satisfaction of the condition of which it is the characteristic. - noun In philology See
characteristic letter or sound, above.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A distinguishing trait, quality, or property; an element of character; that which characterized.
- noun (Math.) The integral part (whether positive or negative) of a logarithm.
- adjective Pertaining to, or serving to constitute, the character; showing the character, or distinctive qualities or traits, of a person or thing; peculiar; distinctive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective being a
distinguishing feature of a person or thing - noun a
distinguishable feature of a person or thing - noun mathematics the
integer part of alogarithm - noun nautical the distinguishing features of a
navigational light on alighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc) - noun algebra The
minimum number of times that theunit of afield must be added unto itself in order to yield that field'szero , or, if that minimumnatural number does not exist, then (theinteger ) zero.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any measurable property of a device measured under closely specified conditions
- noun a prominent attribute or aspect of something
- noun a distinguishing quality
- noun the integer part (positive or negative) of the representation of a logarithm; in the expression log 643 = 2.808 the characteristic is 2
- adjective typical or distinctive
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Treating people differently based on a certain characteristic is called discrimination.
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Treating people differently based on a certain characteristic is called discrimination.
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Their main characteristic is their ability to take on multiple identities, not because they are shared between different worlds but because they are transferred across them. 6 Motion becomes the inseparable part of their identity which has never been fixed in the first place.
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A description of what one might call an apparently static "interior landscape", whose main characteristic is that nothing in it is near or remote, turns out itself, not to be static, but, on the contrary, dynamic.
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So finding out that L's nemesis shares this characteristic is a bit annoying.
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When this characteristic is applied to the relationship between man and woman, as we find in many old love stories, it is depicted as a quiet love, keeping passion under control, in a manner aggressive, yet at the same time one of simple resignation.
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Hall, far from showing that fury which he described as his characteristic, denied the charge with meekness.
English Travellers of the Renaissance Clare Howard
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The soul of this characteristic is absence of selfishness.
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This characteristic is the desire for homogeneousness.
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Because the liquor’s main characteristic is its nothingness — ideally it has no flavor, color or smell — specialty vodka makers said one of their biggest challenges is explaining to people why their products do not taste like the raw materials.
Vodka-Making is Big Business for New England Farmers | Impact Lab 2006
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