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Composition vs Characteristic - What's the difference?

composition | characteristic |

As nouns the difference between composition and characteristic

is that composition is the proportion of different parts to make a whole while characteristic is a distinguishable feature of a person or thing.

As an adjective characteristic is

being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

composition

Noun

(en noun)
  • The proportion of different parts to make a whole.
  • The general makeup of something.
  • (obsolete) An agreement or treaty used to settle differences; later especially, an agreement to stop hostilities; a truce.
  • * , I.40:
  • It will stoope and yeeld upon better compositions to him that shall make head against it.
  • * 1630 , John Smith, True travels , in Kupperman 1988, p.50:
  • with an incredible courage they advanced to the push of the Pike with the defendants, that with the like courage repulsed, that the Turks retired and fled into the Castle, from whence by a flag of truce they desired composition .
  • (obsolete) An agreement to pay money in order to clear a liability or obligation; a settling.
  • * 1745 , Edward Young, Night-Thoughts , II:
  • Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest, / No composition sets the prisoner free.
  • (legal) an agreement or compromise by which a creditor or group of creditors accepts partial payment from a debtor.
  • A mixture or compound; the result of composing.
  • An essay.
  • (linguistics) The formation of compound words from separate words.
  • A work of music, literature or art.
  • * 1818 , (Jane Austen), A letter dated 8 September 1818:
  • and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard words, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment. Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.
  • (printing) Typesetting.
  • (label) Applying a function to the result of another.
  • (obsolete) Consistency; accord; congruity.
  • * Shakespeare
  • There is no composition in these news / That gives them credit.
  • Synthesis as opposed to analysis.
  • * Sir Isaac Newton
  • The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition .

    Synonyms

    * See also

    characteristic

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
  • * , chapter=12
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.}}

    Synonyms

    * distinctive * exclusive * idiosyncratic * indicative * representative * signature * specific * typical

    Antonyms

    * uncharacteristic * untypical

    Derived terms

    * characteristic function * characteristicness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a distinguishable feature of a person or thing
  • (mathematics) the integer part of a logarithm
  • (nautical) the distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc)
  • (algebra, field theory) The minimum number of times that the unit of a field must be added unto itself in order to yield that field's zero, or, if that minimum natural number does not exist, then (the integer) zero.
  • A field's characteristic, if non-zero, must be a prime number.

    Synonyms

    * attribute * idiosyncrasy * mannerism * quality * tendency * trademark * trait * See also

    Derived terms

    * defining characteristic

    See also

    * mantissa