English Explanatory Dictionary

character

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A being involved in the action of a story; a persona.
  2. A distinguishing feature; characteristic; trait; nature; phene.
  3. A complex of traits marking a person, group, breed, or type.
  4. Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.
  5. A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.
  6. A written or printed symbol, or letter.
  7. Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
  8. A secret cipher; a way of writing in code.
  9. One of the basic elements making up a text file or string: a code representing a printing character or a control character.
  10. A person or individual, especially one who is unknown.
  11. An assignment of complex numbers to each element of a group, in particular a finite abelian group. More precisely, a group homomorphism into the group of units of a field (usually ℂ).
  12. Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct with respect to a certain office or duty.
verb
  1. To write (using characters); to describe.

Pronunciation

/ˈkæ.ɹɪk.tə/ /ˈkæɹ(ə)ktɚ/ en-us-character.ogg /ˈkɛɹ(ə)ktɚ/ /ˈk(h)æ.rᵻk.ʈər/ /k(h)æˈrɛk.ʈər/

Word forms

character characters charactering charactered

Etymology

Etymology tree Ancient Greek χαράσσω (kharássō) Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Ancient Greek -τήρ (-tḗr) Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr)der. Latin charactērder. Old French caracterebor. Middle English caracter English character From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr, “type, nature, character”), from χαράσσω (kharássō, “to engrave”). Doublet of charakter.

Related words

codepoint font glyph letter symbol rune pictogram

Derived words

ASA character base character bicharacter big-character poster biocharacter box-drawing character break character breakout character build character carriage control character character actor character actress character amnesia character arc character-assassinate character assassination character-based character beat character-building character cell character class character density character disorder character encoding character-forming characterful character generator characterhood characterisation characterization characterise characterize characterism characterist characteristic characterless characterlike character man character map character neurosis characternym characterologist characterology characteropathy character part character piece character recognition character reference character set character shoe character state character study character theory character trait character user interface characterwise character witness charactery charactonym charactron

Translations

Armenian: տիպ Catalan: personatge Chinese Mandarin: 怪人 Chinese Mandarin: 人物 Danish: personlighed Dutch: persoonlijkheid Finnish: persoona Finnish: persoonallisuus Finnish: tyyppi French: personnage German: Original Greek: χαρακτήρας Hebrew: אִישִׁיּוּת Hebrew: טִיפּוּס Italian: personaggio Māori: korokē Portuguese: figura Portuguese: peça Russian: ли́чность Russian: персона́ж Serbo-Croatian: ли̑к Serbo-Croatian: lȋk Spanish: personaje Swedish: figur Turkish: orijinal kimse Walloon: persounaedje
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