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What is the difference between feature and characteristic?

feature | characteristic |

As nouns the difference between feature and characteristic

is that feature is one's structure or make-up; form, shape, bodily proportions while characteristic is a distinguishable feature of a person or thing.

As a verb feature

is to ascribe the greatest importance to something within a certain context.

As an adjective characteristic is

being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

feature

Noun

(en noun)
  • (label) One's structure or make-up; form, shape, bodily proportions.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.ii:
  • all the powres of nature, / Which she by art could vse vnto her will, / And to her seruice bind each liuing creature; / Through secret vnderstanding of their feature .
  • An important or main item.
  • (label) A long, prominent, article or item in the media, or the department that creates them; frequently used technically to distinguish content from news.
  • Any of the physical constituents of the face (eyes, nose, etc.).
  • (label) A beneficial capability of a piece of software.
  • *
  • The cast or structure of anything, or of any part of a thing, as of a landscape, a picture, a treaty, or an essay; any marked peculiarity or characteristic; as, one of the features of the landscape.
  • *
  • (label) Something discerned from physical evidence that helps define, identify, characterize, and interpret an archeological site.
  • A feature' of many Central Texas prehistoric archeological sites is a low spreading pile of stones called a rock midden. Other ' features at these sites may include small hearths.
  • (label) Characteristic forms or shapes of a part. For example, a hole, boss, slot, cut, chamfer, or fillet.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * featural * feature article

    Verb

    (featur)
  • To ascribe the greatest importance to something within a certain context.
  • To star, to contain.
  • to appear; to make an appearance.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2009 , date=November 27 , author= , title=Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child has 'best guitar riff' , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love, Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water and Layla by Derek and the Dominos also featured in the top five. }}

    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