characteristic
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: algebra
mathematics
nautical
sciences
transport
Etymology: Etymology tree
Ancient Greek χαράσσω (kharássō)
Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr
Ancient Greek -τήρ (-tḗr)
Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr)
Proto-Indo-European *-id-
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti
Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō
Ancient Greek -ίζω (-ízō)
Ancient Greek χαρακτηρίζω (kharaktērízō)
Proto-Indo-European *-tis
Ancient Greek -τις (-tis)
Ancient Greek -σῐς (-sĭs)
Proto-Indo-European *-kos
Ancient Greek -κός (-kós)
?
Proto-Indo-European *-tós
Proto-Hellenic *-tós
Ancient Greek -τος (-tos)
▲
Ancient Greek -κός (-kós)
?
Ancient Greek -τικός (-tikós)
Ancient Greek χᾰρᾰκτηριστῐκός (khărăktēristĭkós)der.
English characteristic
From Ancient Greek χαρακτηριστικός (kharaktēristikós), from χαρακτηρίζω (kharaktērízō, “to designate by a characteristic mark”), from χαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr, “a mark, character”). By surface analysis, character + -istic.
Inflected forms:
form: more characteristic
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most characteristic
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: characteristics
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
pos: adj
examples: All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.
gloss: A distinguishing feature of a person or thing, a part of mental or physical behavior.
pos: noun
gloss: The integer part of a logarithm.
pos: noun
examples: It is evident, moreover, that as the logarithms of numbers, which are tenfold, the one of the other, do not differ except in their characteristics, it is sufficient that the tables contain the fractional parts only of the logarithms.
As the sine and cosine are always proper fractions their logarithms are negative, i.e. have negative characteristics. When we are given an angle, it is impossible to say, from inspection of the angle, what the characteristic of the logarithm of its sine, cosine or tangent may be; so the characteristics have to be printed with the mantissae.
Similarly, the characteristic for .003 is −3, and the characteristic for .0003 is −4.
gloss: The distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc.).
pos: noun
gloss: For a given field or ring, a natural number that is either the smallest positive number n such that n instances of the multiplicative identity (1) summed together yield the additive identity (0) or, if no such number exists, the number 0.
pos: noun
examples: The characteristic of a field, if non-zero, must be a prime number.
1962 [John Wiley & Sons], Nathan Jacobson, Lie Algebras, 1979, Dover, page 289,
In this chapter we study the problem of classifying the finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras over an arbitrary field of characteristic 0.
1992, Simeon Ivanov (translator), P. M. Gudivok, E. Ya. Pogorilyak, On Modular Representations of Finite Groups over Integral Domains, Simeon Ivanov (editor), Galois Theory, Rings, Algebraic Groups and Their Applications, American Mathematical Society, page 87,
Let R be a Noetherian factorial ring of characteristic p which is not a field.
Traditionally, a complete, discretely valued field of characteristic zero, the maximal ideal of whose valuation ring is generated by the prime number p, has been called a p-adic field. In our terminology, the valuation ring of a p-adic field is a Cohen ring of characteristic zero whose residue field has characteristic p, and consequently a p-adic field is simply the quotient field of such a Cohen ring.
Synonyms: characteristic
designation
distinction
distinctiveness
feature
owndom
parameter
property
propriety
race
touch
whatness
Antonyms: uncharacteristic
untypical
Related words: characteristically
mantissa
Derived words: acquired characteristic
biocharacteristic
defining characteristic
demand characteristic
derived characteristic
Euler characteristic
light characteristic
secondary sex characteristic
semicharacteristic
sex characteristic
subcharacteristic
Translations: