different between character vs mask

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /m??sk/
• (General American, UK) IPA^(key): /mæsk/
• Rhymes: -æsk, -??sk
• Homophones: masque, masc (some accents)

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle French masque (“a covering to hide or protect the face”), from Italian maschera (“mask, disguise”), from (a byform of, see it for more) Medieval Latin masca, mascha, a borrowing of Proto-West Germanic *mask? from which English mesh is regularly inherited. Replaced Old English gr?ma (“mask”), whence grime, and displaced non-native Middle English viser (“visor, mask”) borrowed from Old French viser, visier.

Alternative forms

• masque (archaic, noun, verb)

Noun

mask (plural masks)

1. A cover, or partial cover, for the face, used for disguise or protection.

   a dancer's mask; a fencer's mask; a ball player's mask

2. That which disguises; a pretext or subterfuge.
3. A festive entertainment of dancing or other diversions, where all wear masks; a masquerade
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask.

4. A person wearing a mask.
   • 1880, George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life

     the mask that has the arm of the Indian queen
5. (obsolete) A dramatic performance in which the actors wore masks and represented mythical or allegorical characters.
6. (architecture) A grotesque head or face, used to adorn keystones and other prominent parts, to spout water in fountains, and the like

   Synonym: mascaron

7. (fortification) In a permanent fortification, a redoubt which protects the caponiere.
8. (fortification) A screen for a battery
9. (zoology) The lower lip of the larva of a dragonfly, modified so as to form a prehensile organ.
10. (publishing, film) A flat covering used to block off an unwanted portion of a scene or image.
11. (computing, programming) A pattern of bits used in bitwise operations; bitmask.
12. (computer graphics) A two-color (black and white) bitmap generated from an image, used to create transparency in the image.
13. (heraldry) The head of a fox, shown face-on and cut off immediately behind the ears.

Synonyms

• vizard (archaic)

Hyponyms

• (a cover for the face): domino mask, sleep mask

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

mask (third-person singular simple present masks, present participle masking, simple past and past participle masked)

1. (transitive) To cover (the face or something else), in order to conceal the identity or protect against injury; to cover with a mask or visor.
2. (transitive) To disguise; to cover; to hide.
   • 1998, Rudolf Jakhel, Modern Sports Karate: Basics of Techniques and Tactics, Meyer & Meyer Sport (?ISBN)

     The opponent must not be able to recognize when we inhale and when we exhale. We achieve this by breathing with the diaphragm and we do not raise the shoulders while breathing. In particular we must mask when we are out of breath.

   • 2020, Lisa Morgan, Mary Donahue, Living with PTSD on the Autism Spectrum: Insightful Analysis with Practical Applications, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (?ISBN), page 118:

     Many autistic people have language and cognitive skills; [and] they mask their autism, cover up social discomfort, and work hard to be someone they are not, so people often see them as “fitting in” just fine.

3. (transitive, military) To conceal; also, to intervene in the line of.
4. (transitive, military) To cover or keep in check.

5. (intransitive) To take part as a masker in a masquerade.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cavendish to this entry?)

6. (intransitive) To wear a mask; to be disguised in any way.
7. (intransitive) To conceal or disguise one's autism.
   • 2018, Sally Cat, PDA by PDAers: From Anxiety to Avoidance and Masking to Meltdowns, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (?ISBN), page 86:

     Masking is exhausting and some autistics require copious amounts of time afterwards to recover from hiding who they are and pretending to be someone they aren't. Even when autistics mask they don't always pass fully as an NT person.

   • 2021, Yenn Purkis, Wenn B. Lawson, The Autistic Trans Guide to Life, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (?ISBN), page 132:

     So, masking seems to be a very poor explanation for the difference in gender diagnosis of autism. In particular, masking requires theory of mind. How can autistic people successfully mask if they struggle with this ability?

8. (transitive) to cover or shield a part of a design or picture in order to prevent reproduction or to safeguard the surface from the colors used when working with an air brush or painting
9. (transitive, computing) To set or unset (certain bits, or binary digits, within a value) by means of a bitmask.
   • 1993, Richard E. Haskell, Introduction to computer engineering (page 287)

     That is, the lower nibble (the 4 bits 1010 = A) has been masked to zero. This is because ANDing anything with a zero produces a zero, while ANDing any bit with a 1 leaves the bit unchanged […]

10. (transitive, computing) To disable (an interrupt, etc.) by setting or unsetting the associated bit.

Derived terms

• maskable
• masked
• unmask

Related terms

• mascara

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English maske, from Old English max, mas? (“net”), from Proto-West Germanic *mask? (“mesh, netting, mask”). Doublet of mesh and mask above.

Noun

mask (plural masks)

1. mesh
2. (Britain dialectal, Scotland) The mesh of a net; a net; net-bag.

Etymology 3

From Middle English *mask, masch, from Old English m?x, m?sc (“mash”). Doublet of mash.

Noun

mask (plural masks)

1. (Britain dialectal) Mash.

Verb

mask (third-person singular simple present masks, present participle masking, simple past and past participle masked)

1. (transitive, Britain dialectal) To mash.
2. (transitive, Britain dialectal) (brewing) To mix malt with hot water to yield wort.
3. (transitive, Scotland dialectal) To be infused or steeped.
4. (Britain dialectal, Scotland) To prepare tea in a teapot; alternative to brew.

Etymology 4

From Middle English masken, short for *maskeren, malskren (“to bewilder; be confused, wander”). More at masker.

Verb

mask (third-person singular simple present masks, present participle masking, simple past and past participle masked)

1. (transitive, Britain dialectal) To bewilder; confuse.

References

Anagrams

• KAMs, ma'ks, maks

Swedish

Etymology 1

From Old Swedish maþker, from Old Norse maðkr. Cognate with English mawk, Danish maddike and Finnish matikka.

Pronunciation

Noun

mask c

1. worm

Declension

Derived terms

• daggmask

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French masque.

Pronunciation

Noun

mask c

1. mask; a cover designed to disguise or protect the face

Declension

Derived terms

• maskera
• maskerad
• maskering

Anagrams

• kams, skam, smak