different between characterize vs lineament

English

Alternative forms

• characterise

Etymology

From Medieval Latin characterizare, from Ancient Greek ??????????? (kharakt?ríz?, “to designate by a characteristic mark”), from ???????? (kharakt?r, “a mark, character”). Synchronically analyzable as character +? -ize.

Pronunciation

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

Verb

characterize (third-person singular simple present characterizes, present participle characterizing, simple past and past participle characterized)

1. (transitive) To depict someone or something a particular way (often negative).
2. (transitive) To be typical of.
3. (transitive) To determine the characteristics of.

Derived terms

• characterization
• subcharacterize

Translations

Further reading

• characterize in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• characterize in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

From Middle French linéament, from Latin lineamentum, from linea (line).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?l?.n??.m?nt/

Noun

lineament (plural lineaments)

1. Any distinctive shape or line, etc.
3. A distinctive feature that characterizes something, especially the parts of the face of an individual.
   • 1609, Thomas Dekker, The Guls Horn-Booke, London: J.M. Dent, 1905, p. 23, [2]

     […] onely remember, that so soone as thy eyelids be unglewd, thy first exercise must be (either sitting upright on thy pillow, or rarely loling at thy bodies whole length) to yawne, to stretch, and to gape wider then any oyster-wife : for thereby thou doest not onely send out the lively spirits (like vaunt-curers) to fortifie and make good the uttermost borders of the body ; but also (as a cunning painter) thy goodly lineaments are drawne out in their fairest proportion.

   • 1791, William Blake, The French Revolution, Book I, 31-32, [3]

     […] a mask of iron on his face hid the lineaments

     Of ancient Kings, and the frown of the eternal lion was hid from the oppressed earth.

   • 1923, James Stephens, Deirdre, London: Macmillan, Chapter VIII, p. 55, [4]

     But she could not wipe out the king's majesty with that sponge nor alter one lineament of the portrait she had taken ten years to limn.

   • 1927, John Crowe Ransom, Dead Boy:

     A pig with a pasty face, so I had said,

     Squealing for cookies, kinned by poor pretense

     With a noble house. But the little man quite dead,

     I see the forbears' antique lineaments.

(Can we add an example for this sense?)

Translations

References

• lineament in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• alinement