different between character vs deform

English

Etymology

From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r, “type, nature, character”), from ??????? (kharáss?, “I engrave”). Doublet of charakter.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k??(?)kt?/, /?kæ?(?)kt?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kæ??kt?/
• Hyphenation: char?ac?ter

Noun

character (countable and uncountable, plural characters)

1. (countable) A being involved in the action of a story.
2. (countable) A distinguishing feature; characteristic; trait; phene.

3. (uncountable, countable) A complex of traits marking a person, group, breed, or type.

   • A man of […] thoroughly subservient character

4. (uncountable) Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.

5. (countable) A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.

6. (countable) A written or printed symbol, or letter.
   • 1669, William Holder, Elements of Speech

     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.

7. (countable, dated) Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
8. (countable, dated) A secret cipher; a way of writing in code.
9. (countable, computing) One of the basic elements making up a text file or string: a code representing a printing character or a control character.
10. (countable, informal) A person or individual, especially one who is unknown or raises suspicions.

11. (countable, mathematics) A complex number representing an element of a finite Abelian group.
12. (countable) Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct with respect to a certain office or duty.

13. (countable, dated) The estimate, individual or general, put upon a person or thing; reputation.

    • This subterraneous passage is much mended since Seneca gave so bad a character of it.

14. (countable, dated) A reference given to a servant, attesting to their behaviour, competence, etc.
15. (countable, obsolete) Personal appearance.

Usage notes

Character is sometimes used interchangeably with reputation, but the two words have different meanings; character describes the distinctive qualities of an individual or group while reputation describes the opinions held by others regarding an individual or group. Character is internal and authentic, while reputation is external and perceived.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Pages starting with “character”.

Translations

Verb

character (third-person singular simple present characters, present participle charactering, simple past and past participle charactered)

1. (obsolete) To write (using characters); to describe.

See also

• codepoint
• font
• glyph
• letter
• symbol
• rune
• pictogram

Latin

Etymology

From the Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /k?a?rak.ter/, [k?ä??äkt??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ka?rak.ter/, [k????kt??r]

Noun

character m (genitive charact?ris); third declension

1. branding iron
2. brand (made by a branding iron)
3. characteristic, mark, character, style

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Descendants

• Hungarian: karakter
• Galician: caritel; ? carácter
• Irish: carachtar
• Italian: carattere
• Old French: caractere
  • ? English: character
  • French: caractère
• Polish: charakter
  • ? Russian: ????????? (xarákter)
• Portuguese: caractere, carácter
• Sicilian: caràttiri
• Spanish: carácter

References

• character in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• character in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• character in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700?^[1], pre-publication website, 2005-2016

Portuguese

Noun

character m (plural characteres)

1. Obsolete spelling of caráter (used in Portugal until September 1911 and died out in Brazil during the 1920s).

English

Etymology

From Middle English deformen, borrowed from Old French deformer, from Latin deformare, infinitive of deformo, from de- + formo (“to form”), from the noun forma (“form”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??f??m/
• Rhymes: -??(r)m

Verb

deform (third-person singular simple present deforms, present participle deforming, simple past and past participle deformed)

1. (transitive) To change the form of, usually negatively; to give (something) an unusual or abnormal shape.
   • 1693, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, London: J. Moxon, 2nd ed., “Continued in the Art of Joynery,” § 22, p. 90,^[1]

     [...] you must take care to keep the Bitt straight to the Hole you pierce, lest you deform the Hole, or break the Bitt.

   • 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, Volume 1, Chapter 13, p. 323,^[2]

     [...] deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls.

   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, “The Last Night,” pp. 75-76,^[3]

     Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and his avoidance of his friends [...]

   • 2000, Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, New York: Random House, Part 3, Chapter 2, p. 178,^[4]

     [...] Joe’s thick thatch of curls had been deformed by his headgear into a kind of glossy black hat [...]

2. (transitive) To change the looks of, usually negatively; to give something an unusual or abnormal appearance.

   Synonym: disfigure

   a face deformed by bitterness

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 3, Canto 6, p. 483,^[5]

     Some of them washing with the liquid dew

     From of their dainty limbs the dusty sweat,

     And soyle which did deforme their liuely hew,

   • 1774, Henry Home, Lord Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, Dublin: James Williams, Volume 3, Sketch 12, p. 102,^[6]

     [...] their faces and bodies being deformed with paint, in order to terrify the enemy.

   • 1933, Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Chapter 3, p. 49,^[7]

     Matisse at that time was at work at his first big decoration, Le Bonheur de Vivre. [...] It was in this picture that Matisse first clearly realised his intention of deforming the drawing of the human body in order to harmonise and intensify the colour values of all the simple colours mixed only with white.

3. (transitive) To mar the character of.

   a marriage deformed by jealousy

   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 2,^[8]

     [...] your beauty, ladies,

     Hath much deform’d us, fashioning our humours

     Even to the opposed end of our intents:

   • 1659, John Evelyn, A Character of England, London: Jo. Crooke, p. 28,^[9]

     [...] a Cento of unheard of Heresies [...] which, at present, deform the once renowned Church of England;

   • 1742, Samuel Richardson, Pamela, London: S. Richardson, Volume 3, Letter 32, p. 240,^[10]

     It made me tremble a little [...] to think what a sad thing Passion is, when Way is given to its ungovernable Tumults, and how it deforms and debases the noblest Minds!

   • 1772, George Colman, Prologue, in Elizabeth Griffith, A Wife in the Right, London: for the author,^[11]

     While narrow prejudice deform’d the age,

     No actress play’d, no female trod the Stage;

   • 1848, James Fenimore Cooper, The Oak Openings, New York: Burgess, Stringer, Volume 1, Chapter 10, p. 149,^[12]

     [...] the thousand and one sins that disgrace and deform society,

4. (transitive) To alter the shape of by stress.
5. (intransitive) To become misshapen or changed in shape.
   • 1974, Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, New York: Bantam, 1984, Part 2, Chapter 11, p. 117,^[13]

     [...] that metal’s hard and shiny and cold to the touch and deforms without breaking under blows from a harder material [...]

Synonyms

• distort, contort

Hyponyms

• buckle
• warp

Derived terms

• deformable
• deformer
• retrodeform

Related terms

• deformation
• deformity

Translations

Adjective

deform (comparative more deform, superlative most deform)

1. (obsolete) Having an unusual and unattractive shape.

   Synonyms: deformed, disfigured, misshapen

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xii:

     who so kild that monster most deforme, / And him in hardy battaile ouercame, / Should haue mine onely daughter to his Dame […]

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 10, lines 491-492,^[14]

     Sight so deform what heart of Rock could long

     Drie-ey’d behold?

   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 1, p. 28,^[15]

     The common overgrown with fern, and rough

     With prickly goss, that shapeless and deform

     And dang’rous to the touch, has yet its bloom

   • 1820, John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes, stanza 42, in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: Taylor and Hessey, p. 104,^[16]

     Angela the old

     Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;

Anagrams

• formed