Other forms: characters
A character is one of the people a story is about: Sherlock Holmes, the wolf in the fairy tale, the neighbour who never leaves the sofa in a sitcom. It is also the whole set of qualities that make a real person who they are, as in her character, a man of good character.
Character reaches further than either of those. A place has one too: a street with character, a village whose character was ruined by the new road. Say he's a character and you mean he is odd and entertaining. In writing and on screens, a character is one letter, number or symbol, so a password has eight characters and a post is capped at 280. In the moral sense, character means backbone, which is why a hard job builds character and an honest admission shows character. The adjective characteristic means exactly what you would expect from that person.
1nouncharacterA person in a story, film or play.~64%
“The novel follows four characters through one long summer.”
2nounpersonalityThe combination of qualities that makes a person or place what it is.~16%
“Twenty years of army life had shaped his character.”
synonyms: personality, nature, temperament
3nounintegrityMoral strength and honesty.~2%
“It takes character to admit a mistake in public.”
synonyms: integrity, backbone
4nounstrangeIn informal English, a person who is strange or amusing.~2%
“The old man who runs the ferry is quite a character.”
5nounsingleA single letter, number or symbol in writing or on a screen.~16%
“Your password must be at least twelve characters long.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 24 sentences found in the wild and placed 24 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Character began as a mark scratched into a surface: Ancient Greek kharakter, from kharasso, to engrave. It meant the stamp a tool leaves, then the distinctive mark of a person, then the person themselves. That is why one word covers the letters on your screen and the sort of person you are, since both are impressions left behind.
Latin
charactēr
Old French
caractere
Middle English
caracter
English, today
character
Built from
From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin charactēr. From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek χαρακτήρ (“type, nature, character”), from χαράσσω (“to engrave”). Displaced native English thew from Old English þēaw (in the plural) and Old English hād (“person, character”). a doublet of charakter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA