Word.ws English Dictionary

characterise

characterise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of characterize.

Meaning of characterize

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).
    • [Stephen] Miller’s uncle, a neuroscientist, has been welcomed onto the public stage for his denunciations of his nephew’s immigration policies, which the elder Miller has characterized as hypocritical: the Millers’ not-so-distant Jewish ancestors were, of course, immigrants themselves.2019 July 15, Greg Afinogenov, “The Jewish Case for Open Borders”, in Jewish Currents, number Summer 2019
  2. (transitive) To be typical of.
    • There is no way to avoid the slight cups, crooks, bows and twists that characterize wood.1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, →ISBN, page 82
  3. (transitive) To determine the characteristics of.
    • The second level of reading we will call Inspectional Reading. It is characterized by its special emphasis on time.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 18

Forms of characterise

third-person singular presentcharacterises
present participlecharacterising
past participlecharacterised
pastcharacterised

Origin of characterise

From character + -ise.

Words formed from characterise

Questions about characterise

What is characterise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
Characterise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of characterize.

Words near characterise in the dictionary

  1. characteriology
  2. characterisability
  3. characterisable
  4. characterisation
  5. characterisations
  6. characterise
  7. characterised
  8. characteriser
  9. characterisers
  10. characterises
  11. characterising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: characterise (page history and authors); characterize (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-characterise.wav.

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