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Descriptive vs Characteristic - What's the difference?

descriptive | characteristic |

As adjectives the difference between descriptive and characteristic

is that descriptive is of or relating to description while characteristic is being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

As nouns the difference between descriptive and characteristic

is that descriptive is an adjective (or other descriptive word while characteristic is a distinguishable feature of a person or thing.

descriptive

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Of or relating to description.
  • (grammar) Of an adjective, stating an attribute of the associated noun (as heavy'' in ''the heavy dictionary ).
  • (linguistics)   Describing the structure, grammar, vocabulary and actual use of a language.
  • (science, philosophy) Describing and seeking to classify, as opposed to normative or prescriptive.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
  • , author=John T. Jost , title=Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)? , volume=100, issue=2, page=162 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.}}

    Antonyms

    * (science) prescriptive, normative, non-descriptive

    Derived terms

    * descriptively * descriptiveness * descriptive ethics * descriptive geometry * descriptive statistics

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (grammar) An adjective (or other descriptive word)
  • See also

    * (projectlink) * (projectlink) ----

    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