character

A being involved in the action of a story; a persona.

Noun

  1. A being involved in the action of a story; a persona.
    • [I]n a tragedy, or epick poem, the hero of the piece must be advanced foremost to the view of the reader or spectator; he must outshine the rest of all the characters; he must appear the prince of them, like the sun in...
    • The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at...
    • But Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick. The ambition is all in the craft rather than in...

    Hyponyms: protagonist main character antagonist

  2. A distinguishing feature; characteristic; trait; nature; phene.
    • A single locus governing the petal colour character was detected on the linkage group A2.
    • We were not able to ascertain the character of the relationship.
  3. A complex of traits marking a person, group, breed, or type.
    • A study of the suspect's character and his cast iron alibi ruled him out.
    • A man of […] thoroughly subservient character - 1856, John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
    • Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story...
  4. Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.
    • He has a great deal of character.
    • "You may not like to eat liver," said Calvin's father, "but it builds character."
    • Shepard: Are you attracted to other species? Kelly: Well, part of my job is predicting the motives and feelings of humans and aliens. Intimacy brings understanding. Kelly: And passion is nice wherever you find it....
  5. A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.
    • Julius Caesar is a great historical character.
    • That bloke is such a character.
    • The North Staffordshire was always a railway of character from its formation in 1845, and the Railway Member identified with it from the start was also a character. John Lewis Ricardo was M.P. for Stoke-upon-Trent...
  6. A written or printed symbol, or letter.
    • 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. - 1669, William Holder, Elements of Speech: An Essay of Inquiry into the Natural...
  7. Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
    • an inscription in the Runic character
    • You know the character to be your brother's? - c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard,...
  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.
    • We'll start at the beginning, with the basic building blocks not just of emoji, nor even digital communication, but of all written language: characters and character sets. - 2016 November 14, Rob Reed, “Everything You...
  10. A person or individual, especially one who is unknown.
    • We saw a shady character slinking out of the office with some papers.
    • That old guy is a real character.
  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.
    • in the miserable character of a slave
    • in his character as a magistrate

Origin

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.

Forms

characters

Hyponyms

bell character cartoon character Chinese character control character delete character dominant character escape character Hàn character Han character Hebrew character main character main-character syndrome non-printing character null character pi character player character round character staple character stock character

Derived

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

Verb

  1. To write (using characters); to describe.
    • O Roſalind, theſe Trees ſhall be my Bookes, / And in their barkes my thoughts Ile charracter, / That euery eye, which in this Forreſt lookes, / Shall ſee thy vertue witneſt euery where. - c. 1598–1600 (date written),...

Forms

characters charactering charactered

Related

codepoint font glyph letter symbol rune pictogram