different between habit vs characteristic

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?hæb?t/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?hæb?t/
• Rhymes: -æb?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English habit, from Latin habitus (“condition, bearing, state, appearance, dress, attire”), from habe? (“I have, hold, keep”). Replaced Middle English abit, from Old French abit, itself from the same Latin source. Displaced native Old English þ?aw.

Noun

habit (countable and uncountable, plural habits)

1. An action performed on a regular basis.

   Synonym: wont

   • a man of very shy, retired habits

2. An action performed repeatedly and automatically, usually without awareness.

3. A long piece of clothing worn by monks and nuns.

4. A piece of clothing worn uniformly for a specific activity.

5. (archaic) Outward appearance; attire; dress.
   • There are, among the statues, several of Venus, in different habits.
6. (botany, mineralogy) Form of growth or general appearance of a variety or species of plant or crystal.
7. An addiction.

Related terms

• exhibit
• habitual
• habituate
• habitus
• inhibit
• prohibit

Derived terms

• eating habit

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English habiten, from Old French habiter, from Latin habit?re, present active infinitive of habit? (“I dwell, abide, keep”), frequentative of habe? (“I have, hold, keep”); see have.

Verb

habit (third-person singular simple present habits, present participle habiting, simple past and past participle habited)

1. (transitive) To clothe.
2. (transitive, archaic) To inhabit.

Related terms

• habitat
• habitation

Translations

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• Ba'thi

Albanian

Etymology

According to Orel, borrowed from a South Slavic language and ultimately derived from Proto-Slavic *xabiti (“to spoil, to waste”). Compare Old Church Slavonic ?????? (xabiti), Serbo-Croatian habiti (“damage, destroy”), and Bulgarian ???? (habja, “destroy, spend; blunt”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ha?bit/

Verb

habit (first-person singular past tense habita, participle habitur)

1. I surprise
2. I astonish
3. (Gheg; northern Albania and Kosovo) I distract, confuse

Derived terms

• habi
• habitshëm
• habitur
• habitje
• habitore

References

French

Etymology

From Old French habit, abit, borrowed from Latin habitus.

Pronunciation

• ^{(mute h)} IPA^(key): /a.bi/

Noun

habit m (plural habits)

1. article of clothing, garment, dress-coat, evening dress, tails, full dress

Derived terms

• l'habit ne fait pas le moine

Related terms

• habiller
• habillement

Descendants

• ? German: Habit

Further reading

• “habit” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Old French

Noun

habit m (oblique plural habiz or habitz, nominative singular habiz or habitz, nominative plural habit)

1. Alternative form of abit

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?xa.b?it/

Noun

habit m inan

1. habit (clothing worn by monks and nuns)

Declension

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ??????????????? (kharakt?ristikós), from ??????????? (kharakt?ríz?, “to designate by a characteristic mark”), from ???????? (kharakt?r, “a mark, character”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kæ??kt????st?k/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k???kt????st?k/
• Rhymes: -?st?k
• Hyphenation: char?ac?te?ris?tic

Adjective

characteristic (comparative more characteristic, superlative most characteristic)

1. Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

Synonyms

• distinctive
• exclusive
• idiosyncratic
• indicative
• representative
• signature
• specific
• typical

Antonyms

• uncharacteristic
• untypical

Derived terms

• characteristic function
• characteristicness

Translations

Noun

characteristic (plural characteristics)

1. A distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
2. (mathematics) The integer part of a logarithm.
   • 1830, Solomon Pearson Miles, Thomas Sherwin, Mathematical Tables: Comprising Logarithms of Numbers, […] , page 69,

     It is evident, moreover, that as the logarithms of numbers, which are tenfold, the one of the other, do not differ except in their characteristics, it is sufficient that the tables contain the fractional parts only of the logarithms.

   • 1911, F. T. Swanwick, Elementary Trigonometry, Cambridge University Press, page 60,

     As the sine and cosine are always proper fractions their logarithms are negative, i.e. have negative characteristics. When we are given an angle, it is impossible to say, from inspection of the angle, what the characteristic of the logarithm of its sine, cosine or tangent may be; so the characteristics have to be printed with the mantissae.

   • 1961, Principles and Applications of Mathematics for Communications-Electronics, [U.S.] Department of the Army, page 69,

     Similarly, the characteristic for .003 is ?3, and the characteristic for .0003 is ?4.

3. (nautical) The distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc.).
4. (algebra, field theory, ring theory) For a given field or ring, a natural number that is either the smallest positive number n such that n instances of the multiplicative identity (1) summed together yield the additive identity (0) or, if no such number exists, the number 0.
   • 1962 [John Wiley & Sons], Nathan Jacobson, Lie Algebras, 1979, Dover, page 289,

     In this chapter we study the problem of classifying the finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras over an arbitrary field of characteristic 0.

   • 1992, Simeon Ivanov (translator), P. M. Gudivok, E. Ya. Pogorilyak, On Modular Representations of Finite Groups over Integral Domains, Simeon Ivanov (editor), Galois Theory, Rings, Algebraic Groups and Their Applications, American Mathematical Society, page 87,

     Let R be a Noetherian factorial ring of characteristic p which is not a field.

   • 1993, S. Warner, Topological Rings, Elsevier (North-Holland), page 424,

     Traditionally, a complete, discretely valued field of characteristic zero, the maximal ideal of whose valuation ring is generated by the prime number p, has been called a p-adic field. In our terminology, the valuation ring of a p-adic field is a Cohen ring of characteristic zero whose residue field has characteristic p, and consequently a p-adic field is simply the quotient field of such a Cohen ring.

Synonyms

• (distinguishing feature of a person or thing): attribute, hallmark, idiosyncrasy, mannerism, quality, tendency, trademark, trait
• See also Thesaurus:characteristic

Coordinate terms

• (part of a logarithm): mantissa

Derived terms

• defining characteristic

Related terms

• characteristically

Translations

See also

• mantissa

Further reading

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

Interlingua

Adjective

characteristic (not comparable)

1. characteristic

Related terms

• characteristica