[syn: character, grapheme, graphic symbol]
9. (genetics) an attribute (structural or functional) that is determined by a gene or group of genes;
VERB (1)
1. engrave or inscribe characters on;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Character \Char"ac*ter\, n. [L., an instrument for marking,
character, Gr. ?, fr. ? to make sharp, to cut into furrows,
to engrave: cf. F. caract[`e]re.]
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1. A distinctive mark; a letter, figure, or symbol.
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It were much to be wished that there were throughout
the world but one sort of character for each letter
to express it to the eye. --Holder.
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2. Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the peculiar
form of letters used by a particular person or people; as,
an inscription in the Runic character.
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You know the character to be your brother's? --Shak.
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3. The peculiar quality, or the sum of qualities, by which a
person or a thing is distinguished from others; the stamp
impressed by nature, education, or habit; that which a
person or thing really is; nature; disposition.
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The character or that dominion. --Milton.
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Know well each Ancient's proper character;
His fable, subject, scope in every page;
Religion, Country, genius of his Age. --Pope.
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A man of . . . thoroughly subservient character.
--Motley.
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4. Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality;
as, he has a great deal of character.
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5. Moral quality; the principles and motives that control the
life; as, a man of character; his character saves him from
suspicion.
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6. Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct
with respect to a certain office or duty; as, in the
miserable character of a slave; in his character as a
magistrate; her character as a daughter.
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7. The estimate, individual or general, put upon a person or
thing; reputation; as, a man's character for truth and
veracity; to give one a bad character.
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This subterraneous passage is much mended since
Seneca gave so bad a character of it. --Addison.
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8. A written statement as to behavior, competency, etc.,
given to a servant. [Colloq.]
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9. A unique or extraordinary individuality; a person
characterized by peculiar or notable traits; a person who
illustrates certain phases of character; as, Randolph was
a character; C[ae]sar is a great historical character.
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10. One of the persons of a drama or novel.
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Note: "It would be well if character and reputation were used
distinctively. In truth, character is what a person is;
reputation is what he is supposed to be. Character is
in himself, reputation is in the minds of others.
Character is injured by temptations, and by wrongdoing;
reputation by slanders, and libels. Character endures
throughout defamation in every form, but perishes when
there is a voluntary transgression; reputation may last
through numerous transgressions, but be destroyed by a
single, and even an unfounded, accusation or
aspersion." --Abbott.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Character \Char"ac*ter\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Charactered.]
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1. To engrave; to inscribe. [R.]
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These trees shall be my books.
And in their barks my thoughts I 'll character.
--Shak.
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2. To distinguish by particular marks or traits; to describe;
to characterize. [R.] --Mitford.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
character
n 1: an imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (play
or film or story); "she is the main character in the novel"
[syn: fictional character, fictitious character,
character]
2: a characteristic property that defines the apparent
individual nature of something; "each town has a quality all
its own"; "the radical character of our demands" [syn:
quality, character, lineament]
3: the inherent complex of attributes that determines a persons
moral and ethical actions and reactions; "education has for
its object the formation of character"- Herbert Spencer [syn:
character, fiber, fibre]
4: an actor's portrayal of someone in a play; "she played the
part of Desdemona" [syn: character, role, theatrical
role, part, persona]
5: a person of a specified kind (usually with many
eccentricities); "a real character"; "a strange character";
"a friendly eccentric"; "the capable type"; "a mental case"
[syn: character, eccentric, type, case]
6: good repute; "he is a man of character"
7: a formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential
future employer describing the person's qualifications and
dependability; "requests for character references are all too
often answered evasively" [syn: character, reference,
character reference]
8: a written symbol that is used to represent speech; "the Greek
alphabet has 24 characters" [syn: character, grapheme,
graphic symbol]
9: (genetics) an attribute (structural or functional) that is
determined by a gene or group of genes
v 1: engrave or inscribe characters on
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 January 2023):
character
A letter of some alphabet (either upper case or
lower case), a digit, a punctuation or other symbol or a
control character. In a computer, a character is
represented as an integer. What character is represented by
what integer is determined by the current character set.
For example, in the ASCII character set, "A" is 65. These
integers are then stored as a sequence of bytes according to
a character encoding.
The character set and encoding is usually implicit in the
environment in which the character is being interpreted but it
may be specified explicitly, e.g. to convert input to some
standard internal representation.
A sequence of characters is a (character) string.
Compare with glyph.
(1998-10-18)