characteristics
noun
Form of characteristic , plural of characteristic.
Simple meaning
A distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
karuhktuhristiksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˌkæɹəktəˈɹɪstɪks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
nautical
The distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc.).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
Used this way, characteristics is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Distinguishing
Given
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A prominent attribute or aspect of something.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
In characteristic manner.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.