habitual

Syllables: ha·bit·u·alUK/həˈbɪ.tʃʊ.əl//həˈbɪ.t͡ʃʊ.əl/

habitual adjective: of or relating to a habit; established as a habit; performed over and over again; recurrent, recurring.

Adjective

habitual (comparative more habitual, superlative most habitual)

Of or relating to a habit; established as a habit; performed over and over again; recurrent, recurring.
- Her habitual lying was the reason for my mistrust.
- Thomas Aquinas attributeth preparation vnto free-vvill, but not conuerſion. Now this preparation hee thus coloureth, that it is indeed a furtherance to the habituall grace of cõuersion, but yet through the free aſsiſtance of God mouing vs inwardly.1617, Zacharias Ursinus, “Quest. 90. What is the Quickning of the New Man?”, in Henrie Parrie [i.e., Henry Parry], David Pareus, transl., The Svmme of Christian Religion, Deliuered Zacharias Vrsinvs...
Synonyms:

perennial, repeating, repetitious, monotonous, recurrent, recurring, repetitional, repetitionary, repetitive
Regular or usual.
- Professor Franklein took his habitual seat at the conference table.
- Our hearts are ſaid to be purified by faith; Acts 15. 9. not our lives onely in the acts of holineſſe and purity, but our heart in the habituall frame of them.1653, Thomas Shepard, The Sound Beleever. A Treatise of Evangelicall Conversion. Discovering the Work of Christs Spirit, in Reconciling of a Sinner to God, London: Printed for Andrew Crooke […]...
Synonyms:

accustomed, customary, general, average, basic, bog-standard, common, common as bums, common as dirt, common as muck
Of a person or thing: engaging in some behaviour as a habit or regularly.
- He’s a habitual chain-smoker.
- [N]o drunkard (i.e.) no Habituall, Impenitent drunkard, ſhall come into Gods Kingdome.1658, Thomas Hall, “[Chap. 3.] Verse 2. For men shall be lovers of themselves, Covetous, Boasters, Proud, Blasphemers, disobedient to Parents, unthankfull, unholy, &c.”, in A Practical and Polemical...
Pertaining to an action performed customarily, ordinarily, or usually.
- In English, for instance, the Habitual Aspect (used to construction) can combine freely with Progressive Aspect, to give such forms as used to be playing.1976, Bernard Comrie, “Perfective and Imperfective”, in Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; 2), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire...
- The majority of South Arawak, Pareci-Xingu, and Peruvian Arawak languages have a three-fold aspect distinction: completive (completed, perfective or telic action); progressive (action/state in progress; also a durative meaning); and habitual.1999, Alexandra Y[urievna] Aikhenvald, “The Arawak Language Family”, in R[obert] M[alcolm] W[ard] Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, editors, The Amazonian Languages (Cambridge Language Surveys)...
Synonyms:

consuetudinal

Noun

habitual (plural habituals)

(colloquial) One who does something habitually, such as a serial criminal offender.
- It has been suggested that we should classify prisoners as casuals and habituals. If a casual is to be distinguished from an habitual simply by the length of his sentence, this classification would hardly answer.1870 January 20, G. Hutchinson, “XXIV. The Present State of the Prison Question in British India.”, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, and...
- However, in an era when legal punishment was dominated by principles of classical justice and Victorian political economy, what else could one do with the habituals other than provide for an accumulation of prison sentences: the more repeated one's crime, the longer one might be sentenced to...1997, John Pratt, “Dangerousness: The Birth of a Concept”, in Governing the Dangerous: Dangerousness, Law and Social Change, Leichhardt, N.S.W.: The Federation Press, →ISBN, page 31
A construction representing something done habitually.
- Since any situation that can be protracted sufficiently in time, or that can be iterated a sufficient number of times over a long enough period – and this means, in effect, almost any situation – can be expressed as a habitual, it follows that habituality is in principle combinable with various...1976, Bernard Comrie, “Perfective and Imperfective”, in Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; 2), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire...
- Indeed, [Thomas] Givón (1994: 323) suggests the habitual is a 'hybrid modality', sharing some features of realis (higher assertive certainty) and some of irrealis ('lack of specific temporal reference; lack of specific evidence; …').2001, F[rank] R[obert] Palmer, “Subjunctive and Irrealis”, in Mood and Modality (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page...

habitual meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

habitual in Urdu

habitual: عادی 'ādī, شعاری śi'ārī

habitual in Telugu

అలవాటైనది

More languagesFewer languages

habitual in Malayalam: പരിചയിച്ച, പഴക്കമായ, ശീലമായുള്ള
habitual in Kannada: ಬಳಕೆಯ, ಚಟಕ್ಕೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ, ಅಭ್ಯಾಸದ, ರೂಢಿಯ
habitual in Punjabi: ਆਦਤਨ

Examples of habitual in a sentence

I vvas baptized in thy Cordiall vvater, againſt Original ſinne, and I haue drunke of thy Cordiall Blood, for my recouerie, from actuall, and habituall ſinne, in the other Sacrament.1624, John Donne, “11. Prayer.”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine]...
The habitual use of opium is wholly unlike that of the gentler narcotics, tea, coffee, areca, and even tobacco, and is far more pernicious than that even of any description of fermented liquor.1820, John Crawfurd, “Domestic Ceremonies and Familiar Usages”, in History of the Indian Archipelago. Containing an Account of the Manners...
KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCIES [...] Explore the rationale behind an individual's smoking habit (nicotine addiction/dependence, psychosocial aspects, and habitual cues).1997, Christine A. Wynd, “Smoking Cessation”, in Barbara Montgomery Dossey, editor, Core Curriculum for Holistic Nursing, Gaithersburg...
There was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not fond of; teasing them occasionally, of course—all except his uncle, or "Nunc," as Sir Hugo had taught him to say; [...]1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons...

All 38 example sentences with habitual

Synonyms of habitual

26 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of habitual

Forms of habitual

Adjective
comparative	more habitual
superlative	most habitual
alternative form	habituall
Noun
plural	habituals

Origin of habitual

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English habitual (“of one's inherent disposition”), from Medieval Latin habituālis (“customary; habitual”), from Latin habitus (“character; disposition; habit; physical or emotional condition; attire, dress”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship); analysable as habit + -ual. Habitus is derived from habeō (“to have; to hold; to own; to possess”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to grab, take”)) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs). The noun is derived from the adjective.

Words formed from habitual

Phrases with habitual

Questions about habitual

What does habitual mean?: Habitual means of or relating to a habit; established as a habit; performed over and over again; recurrent, recurring.
What is habitual in Tamil?: Habitual in Tamil is வழக்கமான, வாடிக்கையான, பழக்கமான. See Habitual meaning in Tamil.
How do you use habitual in a sentence?: I vvas baptized in thy Cordiall vvater, againſt Original ſinne, and I haue drunke of thy Cordiall Blood, for my recouerie, from actuall, and habituall ſinne, in the other Sacrament.
What part of speech is habitual?: Habitual can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce habitual?: Habitual is pronounced /həˈbɪ.tʃʊ.əl/ (UK).

Words near habitual in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: habitual (page history and authors); habitual (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); شعاری (Urdu) (page history and authors); Habitual (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); habitual (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); habitual (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); habitual (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); habitual (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-habitual.ogg.

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