Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use characteristic in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Characteristic means indicating a distinguishing feature of a person or thing; typical. Example: “The characteristic of a field, if non-zero, must be a prime number.”

Examples of characteristic by meaning

adjectiveIndicating a distinguishing feature of a person or thing; typical.

  • Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

nounThe integer part of a logarithm.

  • As the sine and cosine are always proper fractions their logarithms are negative, i.e. have negative characteristics.1911, F. T. Swanwick, Elementary Trigonometry, Cambridge University Press, page 60
  • Similarly, the characteristic for .003 is −3, and the characteristic for .0003 is −4.1961, “Principles and Applications of Mathematics for Communications-Electronics”, in U.S, Department of the Army, page 69

nounFor a given field or ring, a natural number that is either the smallest positive number n such that n instances of the...

  • The characteristic of a field, if non-zero, must be a prime number.
  • Traditionally, a complete, discretely valued field of characteristic zero, the maximal ideal of whose valuation ring is generated by the prime number p, has been called a p-adic field.1993, S. Warner, Topological Rings, Elsevier (North-Holland), page 424

More sentences with characteristic

  • A polythetic taxon is one where the constituent organisms share a large number of characteristics.From the entry polythetic
  • Having red hair and freckles is a characteristic that is peculiarly Northern European.From the entry peculiarly
  • The ability to reproduce is a defining characteristic of living organisms.From the entry defining
  • The flutter characteristics of the new design suggest that it will hold up well in real-world conditions.From the entry flutter
  • The goth subculture has its own mode of dress, and it has a characteristic musical style.From the entry subculture
  • Digressions are usually considered a characteristic feature of the antinovel tradition.From the entry antinovel
  • The pachyodont arrangement is characteristic of the Chamidae, the jewel boxes.From the entry pachyodont
  • Ingenuity is one of the characteristics of a beaver.From the entry ingenuity
  • A low barometric pressure is characteristic of hurricanes.From the entry barometric
  • The flutter of that gown is characteristic of the designer's style. Its flutter means it looks best in a light breeze.From the entry flutter
  • Having milky latex is a familial characteristic of Apocynaceae.From the entry familial
  • We could see three different scalpers moving through the crowd outside the arena, each muttering the characteristic refrain: “Need any tickets?”From the entry scalper
  • The study can be divided into seven mentionable characteristics.From the entry mentionable
  • As the chest wall and lungs hyperinflate, they progressively resist further inflation by virtue of their elastic recoil characteristics.From the entry hyperinflate
  • A key tool in Nevanlinna theory is the Nevanlinna characteristic, T(r,f), which measures the rate of growth of a meromorphic function.From the entry Nevanlinna theory
  • A polygon's or polyhedron's Euler characteristic is just the number of corners minus the number of edges plus the number of faces.From the entry Euler characteristic
  • (Music in a style characteristic of foreign-born people.): As an American, I enjoy listening to American music like jazz and country, but I don't like ethnic music.From the entry ethnic music
  • He suspects that the plotters have fairly standard anti-elite views with antisemitic and accelerationist characteristics.2026 June 27, J. Oliver Conroy, “The UFC match plot: how a far-right group tried to assassinate Trump at his own event”, in The Guardian…. From the entry accelerationist
  • Segal said another characteristic of Trump’s questionable mental acuity is confabulation.2025 August 3, Adam Gabbatt, quoting Harry Segal, “‘He has trouble completing a thought’: bizarre public appearances again cast doubt on…. From the entry confabulation
  • Each species adapitates subtly to its specific environment which influences their physical characteristics and behaviors slightly differently.2025 April 22 (last accessed), Aptive Environmental, Jumping Mice Guide, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025. From the entry adapitates
  • Different formulations and manufacturing methods produce steels with a spectrum of characteristics, including yield strength.2024 March 23, “Yield Strength of Steel: A Comprehensive Guide”, in Unionfab, archived from the original on 13 Jan 2026. From the entry steel
  • An obvious characteristic of a kakistocrat is inserting unqualified loyalists into positions of power.2024 November 17, Howie Klein, “A Plurality Of American Voters Have Embraced Kakistocracy As Their Preferred Form Of Governance”, in…. From the entry loyalist
  • These specimens have the "lutestrings" of or, and the "figure of 80" characteristic of octogessima.2023, Richard South, The Moths of the British Isles. From the entry lutestring
  • Antisemitic rhetoric specifically targets Jews; anti-Jewish rhetoric instead targets all who bear purportedly Jewish characteristics, especially non-Jews.2023 October 1, David M. Freidenreich, Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy, Oakland, California: University of…. From the entry anti-Judaism
  • Are the characteristics that are ascribed to lingua franca communication general lingua franca features?2022, Sabine Fiedler, Cyril Robert Brosch, “The aim of this book” (chapter 4), in Esperanto – Lingua Franca and Language Community, John…. From the entry rather
  • In fact, this is one of the important characteristics of Heartfulness.2022 May 9, Annelies van’t Westeinde, Kamlesh D. Patelcorresponding, “Heartfulness Meditation: A Yogic and Neuroscientific Perspective”…. From the entry heartfulness
  • That world was marked by three main characteristics: hyperorganization, thoroughgoing plutocracy, and intense piety.2022, Clifford Geertz, SŪQ: Geertz on the Market, page 45. From the entry hyperorganization
  • In this case, Generation Zed’s preferred leadership characteristics will be explored within entry-levels jobs.2021, William Elias, Daniel Johansson, Oscar van de Voort, Brace Yourself, Gen Z Is Coming!: A Qualitative Study About Swedish Generation…. From the entry Generation Zed
  • The death grip, summit disease, these are extended characteristics of the fungus, part of its extended phenotype.2020, Merlin Sheldrake, “Mycelial Minds”, in Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, London…. From the entry summit disease
  • The exact extent of change is highly dependent on the specific context of each alas's physical characteristics.2019, Takeshi Ohta, Tetsuya Hiyama, Yoshihiro Iijima, Water-Carbon Dynamics in Eastern Siberia, page 195. From the entry alas
  • In other words, the relation of inconformity follows merely upon the nonrelational characteristics of the relata.2019, Peter Furlong, The Challenges of Divine Determinism: A Philosophical Analysis, page 94. From the entry relatum
  • The effect of the jave depends upon the characteristics of the ice-jam release and downstream ice conditions.2019, Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt, “Ice-Jam Release Waves (Javes)” (chapter 13), in River Ice Processes and Ice Flood Forecasting: A Guide…. From the entry jave
  • It is simply that we have different taste response characteristics to one and the same stimulus.2018, Michael Haworth, Neurotechnology and the End of Finitude, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN. From the entry bananaphile
  • Extensive welfare provision such as coal, grocery packages and clothing soon became a characteristic of RP municipalism.2017 September 22, Charlotte Joppien, Municipal Politics in Turkey: Local Government and Party Organisation, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry municipalism
  • The quantitative indices of characteristics of layers can serve as a partial solution.2017 July 19, Lev N. Rabinskiy, Andrey V. Ripetskiy, Sergey V. Zelenov, Ekaterina L. Kuzentsova, “ANALYSIS AND MONITORING METHODS OF…. From the entry sustentaculums

Meaning of characteristic

  1. adjective Indicating a distinguishing feature of a person or thing; typical.
  2. adjective Describing or pertaining to personal characters or character types; characterful.
  3. noun A distinguishing feature of a person or thing, a part of mental or physical behavior.

Full definition of characteristic

Questions about characteristic in a sentence

How do you use characteristic in a sentence?
Characteristic is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The characteristic of a field, if non-zero, must be a prime number.”
What is a short sentence with characteristic?
“A low barometric pressure is characteristic of hurricanes.”
What does characteristic mean?
Characteristic means indicating a distinguishing feature of a person or thing; typical.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: characteristic (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use characteristic in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/characteristic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.