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Excellence vs Characteristic - What's the difference?

excellence | characteristic |

As a proper noun excellence

is a title of honor or respect; more common in the form excellency.

As an adjective characteristic is

being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

As a noun characteristic is

a distinguishable feature of a person or thing.

excellence

Noun

(en-noun)
  • The quality of being excellent; state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree; exalted merit; superiority in virtue.
  • Something in which one excels.
  • An excellent or valuable quality; that by which any one excels or is eminent; a virtue.
  • Synonyms

    * superiority * pre-eminence * perfection * worth * goodness * purity * greatness

    See also

    * par excellence ----

    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