Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Done by habit.
- adjective Being so by habit: synonym: chronic.
- adjective Established by long use; usual: synonym: usual.
- adjective Grammar Designating an action or state that lasts for or is repeated over an extended duration, expressed in English by such means as the simple present tense (She works downtown) and the phrase used to (A factory used to be located at that intersection).
from The Century Dictionary.
- Formed or acquired by, or resulting from, habit, frequent use, or custom.
- According to or constituting a habit; existing as a habit or a fixed condition; customary; usual; regular: as, the habitual practice of sin; the habitual exercise of forbearance; habitual good or ill health.
- Formed by repeated impressions; rendered permanent by continued causes: as, a habitual color of the skin
- Synonyms Usual, Customary, Habitual; accustomed, wonted, regular, ordinary, every-day. As habit goes beyond custom in its regularity, so habitual goes beyond usual or customary. Indeed, habitual would now hardly be used where it was not meant that the habit was uniform and unbroken or firmly fixed as an element of character: as, habitual indolence. The other words lead up to this: usual, that which occurs much more often than not; customary, that which occurs in the larger part of all the cases. See
custom .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Formed or acquired by habit or use.
- adjective According to habit; established by habit; customary; constant.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Behaving in a regular manner, as a
habit . - adjective Recurring, or that is performed over and over again.
- adjective
Regular orusual .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective commonly used or practiced; usual
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word habitual.
Examples
-
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civiliians
Firedoglake » Late Nite FDL: Lou Reed on Net Neutrality 2006
-
From the NYT:Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians....
06/01/2006 2006
-
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.
-
There is that which we call habitual grace; that is, the fruits of the
Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost 1616-1683 1965
-
Before he was twenty he'd been in Mimico for what they called habitual alcoholism.
Pioneers of Alienation and 50s Sci-Fi at Thing Street Asylum 8
-
And training oneself in habitual, systematic dishonesty is surely a bad thing.
-
"Our results indicate that older adults can use these sorts of more complex motor tasks to effectively reduce repetition errors in habitual prospective memory tasks, such as taking a daily medication." ...
Boing Boing 2009
-
Sanctifying grace remains with us as long as we are not guilty of mortal sin; and hence, it is often called habitual grace; but actual grace comes to us only when we need its help in doing or avoiding an action, and it remains with us only while we are doing or avoiding the action.
Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) Anonymous
-
They were fixed upon the trail before him, and he stumbled on in habitual misery, as though he had been doing this thing for a few centuries more or less.
Morganson's Finish 1907
-
It was only when he read over the notes of the sitting, a little later, that he perceived all at once that his father had been describing the last hours of his life in the terms habitual to him.
Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research Michael Sage 1897
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.