different between character vs self

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

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) selfe,
• (obsolete, rare) silf, silfe

Etymology

From Middle English self, silf, sulf, from Old English self, seolf, sylf, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?lf/
• Rhymes: -?lf

Pronoun

self

1. (obsolete) Himself, herself, itself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned).

   This argument was put forward by the defendant self.

2. (commercial or humorous) Myself.

   I made out a cheque, payable to self, which cheered me up somewhat.

Noun

self (plural selves or selfs)

1. One individual's personality, character, demeanor, or disposition.

2. The subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions, thoughts.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II scene ix^[1]:

     Portia:

     To these injunctions every one doth swear

     That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

3. An individual person as the object of the person's own reflective consciousness (plural selves).
   • 1859, Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic Lecture IX

     The self, the I, is recognized in every act of intelligence as the subject to which that act belongs. It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, I that attend, I that compare, I that feel, I that will, I that am conscious.
4. Self-interest or personal advantage.
5. Identity or personality.
6. (botany) A seedling produced by self-pollination (plural selfs).
7. (botany) A flower having its colour uniform as opposed to variegated.
8. (molecular biology, immunology) Any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

Antonyms

• (immunology) nonself

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• self-
• person
• I
• ego

Verb

self (third-person singular simple present selfs, present participle selfing, simple past and past participle selfed)

1. (botany) To fertilise by the same individual; to self-fertilise or self-pollinate.
2. (botany) To fertilise by the same strain; to inbreed.

Antonyms

• outcross

Adjective

self

1. Having its own or a single nature or character throughout, as in colour, composition, etc., without addition or change; of the same kind; unmixed.

   a self bow: one made from a single piece of wood

   a self flower or plant: one which is wholly of one colour

2. (obsolete) Same, identical.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene i^[2]:

     I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth

     That which I owe is lost; but if you please

     To shoot another arrow that self way

     Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

     As I will watch the aim, or to find both,

     Or bring your latter hazard back again,

     And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I scene i^[3]:

     I am made of that self mettle as my sister.

   • But were it granted, yet the heighth of these Mountains is far under the supposed place of Paradise; and on these self Hills the Air is so thin […]

   • 1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite

     At that self moment enters Palamon
     The gate of Venus […]

3. (obsolete) Belonging to oneself; own.
4. (molecular biology, immunology) Of or relating to any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

Antonyms

• (immunologic sense) nonself

Further reading

• self in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• self in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Self in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “self”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).

Anagrams

• FLES, LSFE, elfs

Danish

Alternative forms

• self.

Adverb

self

1. (Internet slang) Abbreviation of selvfølgelig (“of course”).

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (salaf).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?lf/

Noun

self m

1. loan

Middle English

Alternative forms

• silf, sulf

Etymology

From Old English self, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?lf/

Adjective

self

1. (the) (very/self) same, (the) aforementioned
2. Intensifies the pronoun or noun it follows or precedes; very
3. (+genitive) own

Descendants

• English: self
• Scots: self, sel

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Pronoun

self

1. themself, themselves; a reflexive pronoun
2. that, this

Descendants

• English: self (obsolete in most pronominal senses)
• Scots: self, sel

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Noun

self (plural selfs)

1. (the) same thing, (the) aforementioned thing

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Old English

Alternative forms

• seolf, sylf

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /self/, [se?f]

Pronoun

self

1. self

Derived terms

• selfl??

Descendants

• Middle English: self, silf, sulf
  • English: self
  • Scots: self

Old Saxon

Alternative forms

• selvo

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronoun

self

1. self

Descendants

• Low German: sulv