Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To describe the qualities or peculiarities of.
- transitive verb To be a distinctive trait or mark of; distinguish.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To impart a special stamp or character to; constitute a characteristic or the characteristics of; stamp or distinguish; mark; denote.
- To describe the character or give an account of the qualities of; describe by distinguishing qualities.
- To engrave, stamp, or imprint.
- Also spelled
characterise . - Synonyms To mark, designate.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To make distinct and recognizable by peculiar marks or traits; to make with distinctive features.
- transitive verb obsolete To engrave or imprint.
- transitive verb To indicate the character of; to describe.
- transitive verb To be a characteristic of; to make, or express the character of.
- transitive verb (Chem.) to identify the structure or nature of.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To depict someone or something a particular way (often negative.)
- verb To determine the characteristics of.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb be characteristic of
- verb describe or portray the character or the qualities or peculiarities of
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Clarity, pertinence, and reasonableness again characterize Weil's writing, and a hefty clutch of recipes concludes.
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The use of it in the way you characterize is exactly as you note, and actually injects the writer’s POV into the piece.
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Nineteenth-and early twentieth-century writers used the term to characterize abnormalities of language production (e.g., paraphasic speech, speech without content, neologisms), rather than to define aberrant concept formation and abstraction (e.g., unable to recognize the basic category of such objects as apples and pears), which also are observed in schizophrenics.
The Neuropsychiatric Guide to Modern Everyday Psychiatry Michael Alan Taylor 1993
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(i) What, if anything, would in physical terms characterize backward causation?
Backward Causation Faye, Jan 2005
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MEADE: They kind of characterize themselves as tech heads so to speak, so they were fascinated.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, in addition to trying to respond to many of the issues and concerns and questions that you and indeed the whole world has, let me just kind of characterize how our university is trying to cope and during the process of questions and statements by Dr. Heinz (ph) and Dr. MacNamee (ph), I hope that you'll get a little flavor of that.
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What can you -- can you kind of characterize for us what was remarkable about the investigation?
CNN Transcript - Breaking News: Verdict Reached in Lockerbie Trial - January 31, 2001 2001
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Are you able to kind of characterize what happened over the weekend and where you think things stand for the next day or so?
Press Briefing By Joe Lockhart From Camp David ITY National Archives 2000
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And were you able to kind of characterize what happened over the weekend and where you think things stand for the next day or so?
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Q Can you kind of characterize his demeanor as he spoke to you?
Press Briefing By Mike Mccurry A ITY National Archives 1998
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