Other forms: characterised, characterises, characterising
To characterise is to describe the nature of something. Characterise the period, wrongly characterised, characterise it as a failure.
How you characterise something is half the argument — calling a protest a riot or a riot a protest settles more than any evidence that follows. It also means to be typical of, as in the patience that characterises the work. American writing uses a z.
1verbcharacteriseTo describe the nature of something.
“The report characterises the town as quiet, safe and rather dull.”
characterise is a describing.
Also accepted in games: characterize
Latin
charactēr
Old French
caractere
Middle English
caracter
English
character
English, today
characterise
Built from
From character + -ise. character comes 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