"character" | Definition and Related Words

character

Noun

An imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (play or film or story) (synset 109610740)
"she is the main character in the novel"

is a type of: imaginary being, imaginary creature - a creature of the imagination; a person that exists only in legends or myths or fiction

subtypes: agonist, protagonist - the principal character in a work of fiction
specific instances:
- aladdin - in the Arabian Nights a boy who acquires a magic lamp from which he can summon a genie
- argonaut - (Greek mythology) one of the heroes who sailed with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece
- babar - an imaginary elephant that appears in a series of French books for children
- beatrice - the woman who guided Dante through Paradise in the Divine Comedy
- beowulf - the legendary hero of an anonymous Old English epic poem composed in the early 8th century; he slays a monster and becomes king but dies fighting a dragon
- bluebeard - (fairytale) a monstrous villain who marries seven women; he kills the first six for disobedience
- bond, james bond - British secret operative 007 in novels by Ian Fleming
- brer rabbit - the fictional character of a rabbit who appeared in tales supposedly told by Uncle Remus and first published in 1880
- bunyan, paul bunyan - a legendary giant lumberjack of the north woods of the United States and Canada
- john henry - hero of American folk tales; portrayed as an enormously strong black man who worked on the railroads and died from exhaustion after winning a contest with a steam drill
- cheshire cat - a fictional cat with a broad fixed smile on its face; created by Lewis Carroll
- chicken little - a fictional character who was hit on the head with an acorn and believed that the sky was falling
- cinderella - a fictional young girl who is saved from her stepmother and stepsisters by her fairy godmother and a handsome prince
- colonel blimp - a pompous reactionary cartoon character created by Sir David Low
- dracula - fictional vampire in a gothic horror novel by Bram Stoker
- don quixote - the hero of a romance by Cervantes; chivalrous but impractical
- el cid - the hero of a Spanish epic poem from the 12th century
- fagin - a villainous Jew in a novel by Charles Dickens
- falstaff, sir john falstaff - a dissolute character in Shakespeare's plays
- father brown - a Catholic priest who was the hero of detective stories by G. K. Chesterton
- faust, faustus - an alchemist of German legend who sold his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for knowledge
- frankenstein - the fictional Swiss scientist who was the protagonist in a gothic novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; he created a monster from parts of corpses
- frankenstein, frankenstein's monster - the monster created by Frankenstein in a gothic novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (the creator's name is commonly used to refer to his creation)
- goofy - a cartoon character created by Walt Disney
- gulliver - a fictional Englishman who travels to the imaginary land of Lilliput in a satirical novel by Jonathan Swift
- hamlet - the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy who hoped to avenge the murder of his father
- captain horatio hornblower, horatio hornblower - a fictional English admiral during the Napoleonic Wars in novels written by C. S. Forester
- iago - the villain in William Shakespeare's tragedy who tricked Othello into murdering his wife
- commissaire maigret, inspector maigret - a fictional detective in novels by Georges Simenon
- kilroy - a nonexistent person popularized by American servicemen during World War II
- king lear, lear - the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy who was betrayed and mistreated by two of his scheming daughters
- lilliputian - a 6-inch tall inhabitant of Lilliput in a novel by Jonathan Swift
- marlowe, philip marlowe - tough cynical detective (one of the early detective heroes in American fiction) created by Raymond Chandler
- micawber, wilkins micawber - fictional character created by Charles Dickens; an eternal optimist
- mother goose - the imaginary author of a collection of nursery rhymes
- mr. moto - Japanese sleuth created by John Marquand
- othello - the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy who would not trust his wife
- pangloss - an incurable optimist in a satire by Voltaire
- pantaloon - a character in the commedia dell'arte; portrayed as a foolish old man
- perry mason - fictional detective in novels by Erle Stanley Gardner
- peter pan - the main character in a play and novel by J. M. Barrie; a boy who won't grow up
- pied piper, pied piper of hamelin - the title character in a German folk tale and in a poem by Robert Browning
- pierrot - a male character in French pantomime; usually dressed in white with a whitened face
- pluto - a cartoon character created by Walt Disney
- huck finn, huckleberry finn - a mischievous boy in a novel by Mark Twain
- rip van winkle - the title character in a story by Washington Irving about a man who sleeps for 20 years and doesn't recognize the world when he wakens
- ruritanian - an imaginary inhabitant of Ruritania
- tarzan, tarzan of the apes - a man raised by apes who was the hero of a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- tom sawyer - the boy hero of a novel by Mark Twain
- uncle remus - the fictional storyteller of tales written in the Black Vernacular and set in the South; the tales were first collected and published in book form in 1880
- uncle tom - a servile black character in a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- uncle sam - a personification of the United States government
- holmes, sherlock holmes - a fictitious detective in stories by A. Conan Doyle
- simon legree - the cruel slave dealer in an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- sinbad, sinbad the sailor - in the Arabian Nights a hero who tells of the fantastic adventures he had in his voyages
- snoopy - a fictional beagle in a comic strip drawn by Charles Schulz
- ali baba - the fictional woodcutter who discovered that `open sesame' opened a cave in the Arabian Nights' Entertainment
- emile - the boy whose upbringing was described by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- houyhnhnm - one of a race of intelligent horses who ruled the Yahoos in a novel by Jonathan Swift
- little john - legendary follower of Robin Hood; noted for his size and strength
- little red riding hood - a girl in a fairy tale who meets a wolf while going to visit her grandmother
- raskolnikov, rodya raskolnikov - a fictional character in Dostoevsky's novel `Crime and Punishment'; he kills old women because he believes he is beyond the bounds of good or evil
- robin hood - legendary English outlaw of the 12th century; said to have robbed the rich to help the poor
- robinson crusoe - the hero of Daniel Defoe's novel about a shipwrecked English sailor who survives on a small tropical island
- rumpelstiltskin - a dwarf in one of the fairy stories of the brothers Grimm; tells a woman he will not hold her to a promise if she can guess his name and when she discovers it he is so furious that he destroys himself
- shylock - a merciless usurer in a play by Shakespeare
- tristan, tristram - (Middle Ages) the nephew of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with his uncle's bride (Iseult) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other
- iseult, isolde - (Middle Ages) the bride of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with the king's nephew (Tristan) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other
- scaramouch, scaramouche - a stock character in commedia dell'arte depicted as a boastful coward
- svengali - the musician in a novel by George du Maurier who controls Trilby's singing hypnotically
- sweeney todd, todd - fictional character in a play by George Pitt; a barber who murdered his customers
- trilby - singer in a novel by George du Maurier who was under the control of the hypnotist Svengali
- walter mitty - fictional character created by James Thurber who daydreams about his adventures and triumphs
- yahoo - one of a race of brutes resembling men but subject to the Houyhnhnms in a novel by Jonathan Swift
- arthur, king arthur - a legendary king of the Britons (possibly based on a historical figure in the 6th century but the story has been retold too many times to be sure); said to have led the Knights of the Round Table at Camelot
- galahad, sir galahad - (Arthurian legend) the most virtuous knight of the Round Table; was able to see the Holy Grail
- gawain, sir gawain - (Arthurian legend) a nephew of Arthur and one of the knights of the Round Table
- guenevere, guinevere - (Arthurian legend) wife of King Arthur; in some versions of the legend she became Lancelot's lover and that led to the end of the Knights of the Round Table
- lancelot, sir lancelot - (Arthurian legend) one of the knights of the Round Table; friend of King Arthur until (according to some versions of the legend) he became the lover of Arthur's wife Guinevere
- merlin - (Arthurian legend) the magician who acted as King Arthur's advisor
same as: fictional character, fictitious character
A characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something (synset 105857811)
"each town has a quality all its own"; "the radical character of our demands"

is a type of: attribute, dimension, property - a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished

subtypes: texture - the essential quality of something

same as: lineament, quality
The inherent complex of attributes that determines a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions (synset 104627573)
"education has for its object the formation of character"

is a type of: trait - a distinguishing feature of your personal nature

subtypes: spirit - a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character
has:
- thoughtfulness - the trait of thinking carefully before acting
- responsibility, responsibleness - a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one's conduct
- integrity - moral soundness
is a part of: personality - the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual

same as: fiber, fibre
An actor's portrayal of someone in a play (synset 105937794)
"she played the part of Desdemona"

is a type of: characterization, enactment, personation, portrayal - acting the part of a character on stage; dramatically representing the character by speech and action and gesture
subtypes:
- bit part, minor role - a small role
- heavy - a serious (or tragic) role in a play
- hero - the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem
- ingenue - the role of an innocent artless young woman in a play
- name part, title role - the role of the character after whom the play is named
- heroine - the main good female character in a work of fiction
- baddie, villain - the principal bad character in a film or work of fiction
same as: part, persona, role, theatrical role
A person of a specified kind (usually with many eccentricities) (synset 109928518)
"a real character"; "a strange character"; "a friendly eccentric"; "the capable type"; "a mental case"

is a type of: adult, grownup - a fully developed person from maturity onward

same as: case, eccentric, type
Good repute (synset 114462159)
"he is a man of character"

is a type of: reputation, repute - the state of being held in high esteem and honor
A formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential future employer describing the person's qualifications and dependability (synset 106707541)
"requests for character references are all too often answered evasively"

is a type of: good word, recommendation, testimonial - something that recommends (or expresses commendation of) a person or thing as worthy or desirable

same as: character reference, reference
A written symbol that is used to represent speech (synset 106831828)
"the Greek alphabet has 24 characters"

is a type of: printed symbol, written symbol - a written or printed symbol
subtypes:
- allograph - a variant form of a grapheme, as `m' or `M' or a handwritten version of that grapheme
- check character - a character that is added to the end of a block of transmitted data and used to check the accuracy of the transmission
- superior, superscript - a character or symbol set or printed or written above and immediately to one side of another character
- inferior, subscript - a character or symbol set or printed or written beneath or slightly below and to the side of another character
- ascii character - any member of the standard code for representing characters by binary numbers
- ligature - character consisting of two or more letters combined into one
- capital, capital letter, majuscule, upper-case letter, uppercase - one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis
- lower-case letter, lowercase, minuscule, small letter - the characters that were once kept in bottom half of a compositor's type case
- type - printed characters
- percent sign, percentage sign - a sign (`%') used to indicate that the number preceding it should be understood as a proportion multiplied by 100
- asterisk, star - a star-shaped character * used in printing
- dagger, obelisk - a character used in printing to indicate a cross reference or footnote
- diesis, double dagger, double obelisk - a character used in printing to indicate a cross reference or footnote
- alphabetic character, letter, letter of the alphabet - the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech
- blank, space - a blank character used to separate successive words in writing or printing
- phonetic symbol - a written character used in phonetic transcription of represent a particular speech sound
- mathematical symbol - a character that is used to indicates a mathematical relation or operation
- rune, runic letter - any character from an ancient Germanic alphabet used in Scandinavia from the 3rd century to the Middle Ages
- pictograph - a graphic character used in picture writing
- ideogram, ideograph - a graphic character that indicates the meaning of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it
- radical - a character conveying the lexical meaning of a logogram
- stenograph - a shorthand character
same as: graph, grapheme, graphic symbol
(genetics) an attribute (structural or functional) that is determined by a gene or group of genes (synset 104624273)
referred to in: genetic science, genetics - the branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms

is a type of: attribute - an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity

subtypes: unit character - (genetics) a character inherited on an all-or-none basis and dependent on the presence of a single gene

Verb

Engrave or inscribe characters on (synset 201325055)
is a type of: engrave, grave, inscribe, scratch - carve, cut, or etch into a material or surface

character

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