characteristic

American  

[kar-ik-tuh-ris-tik] / ˌkær ɪk təˈrɪs tɪk /

adjective

1. Also characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive.

   Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.

   Synonyms:

   peculiar, special

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noun

characteristics plural

1. a distinguishing feature or quality.

   Generosity is his chief characteristic.

   Synonyms:

   trait, property, attribute

2. Mathematics.

   1. the integral part of a common logarithm.

   2. the exponent of 10 in a number expressed in scientific notation.

   3. the smallest positive integer n such that each element of a given ring added to itself n times results in 0.

characteristic British  

/ ˌkærɪktəˈrɪstɪk /

noun

1. a distinguishing quality, attribute, or trait

2. maths

   1. the integral part of a common logarithm, indicating the order of magnitude of the associated number Compare mantissa

      the characteristic of 2.4771 is 2

   2. another name for exponent, used esp in number representation in computing

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adjective

1. indicative of a distinctive quality, etc; typical

characteristic Scientific  

/ kăr′ək-tə-rĭs′tĭk /

1. The part of a logarithm to the base 10 that is to the left of the decimal point. For example, if 2.749 is a logarithm, 2 is the characteristic.

2. Compare mantissa

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Synonym Usage

See feature.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• noncharacteristic
  adjective
• quasi-characteristic
  adjective
• uncharacteristic
  adjective
• characteristically
  adverb
• noncharacteristically
  adverb
• quasi-characteristically
  adverb
• uncharacteristically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• characteristics
  plural

Etymology

Origin of characteristic

First recorded in 1655–65; from Greek charaktēristikós ( see character, -istic)

Explanation

If something is a characteristic of someone or something, it is a feature you would expect. A characteristic of classical-style architecture is large stone columns. A characteristic of poodles is their pom-pom like tails. A characteristic feature needn't just be a something physically apparent, it can describe a type of personality or atmosphere as well, as in: "The characteristic of all funeral homes is their gloomy air." As their spelling and meaning implies, there is a close link between the words characteristic and character, meaning the essential nature of a thing, and in fact both words come from the ancient Greek kharackter, meaning a "symbol or imprint on the soul."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

characteristic characteristics

Petersen-Smith said that, in the context of the global war on terror, the term low boil is useful because it describes a type of second stage that has been characteristic of recent U.S. wars.

From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026

In characteristic fashion, Stokes was in the middle of a tireless spell on Sunday, attempting to haul his team back into the third Test, when the news broke.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026

Hemani instead insists that courts examine not merely whether two laws share a surface characteristic but whether they target the same conduct, pursue the same objectives, and operate in roughly the same way.

From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2026

While engineers have spent decades trying to create “explainable AI,” a defining characteristic of today’s large language models is that they remain biased black boxes that are capricious in their decision-making.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026

By American standards, the Delaware is not a particularly imposing waterway, but it has one almost unique characteristic.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson

Gold’s structural characteristics continue to make it an effective hedge against sovereign risk, persistent inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty, while central bank buying should provide long-term support to gold prices, she adds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

EEA studies compare an event's characteristics, such as its probability and intensity in the current climate, to a "counterfactual" world without human-caused emissions.

From Barron's ● Jul. 16, 2026

Those were characteristics Rai showed in abundance only last May to become the first Englishman win the US PGA in more than a century at Aronimink.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

Light possesses many characteristics that researchers can manipulate, including its intensity, phase, polarization, spin, and its electric and magnetic field vectors.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026

Does this mean that fat obstetricians deliver babies that have one set of personality characteristics, and skinny ones deliver babies that have quite different characteristics?

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

Related Words

• aspect
• attribute
• component
• essence
• flavor
• nature
• peculiarity
• personality
• quality
• style
• symptom
• temperament
• tendency
• tone
• virtue