characteristic: Meaning and Definition of

char•ac•ter•is•tic

1. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.

1. a distinguishing feature or quality: Generosity is his chief characteristic.
1. the integral part of a common logarithm. Cf. mantissa.
2. the exponent of 10 in a number expressed in scientific notation.
3. the smallest positive integer n such that each element of a given ring added to itself n times results in 0.