Word.ws English Dictionary

build character

build character verb: to improve a person's character by developing personality traits such as resilience or responsibility.

Verb

build character (third-person singular simple present builds character, present participle building character, simple past and past participle built character)

  1. (idiomatic) To improve a person's character by developing personality traits such as resilience or responsibility.
    • Pretty convenient how every time I build character, he saves a couple hundred dollars.1989 January 2, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic)

Forms of build character

third-person singular presentbuilds character
present participlebuilding character
past participlebuilt character
pastbuilt character

Questions about build character

What does build character mean?
Build character means to improve a person's character by developing personality traits such as resilience or responsibility.
What part of speech is build character?
Build character is a verb.
What is the past tense of build character?
The past tense of build character is built character.

Words near build character in the dictionary

  1. build air castles
  2. build artifact
  3. build artifacts
  4. build bridges
  5. build castles in the air
  6. build character
  7. build down
  8. build in
  9. build into
  10. build on
  11. build on sand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: build character (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “build character.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/build_character. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.