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# characterise

«characterise» in Mova's school dictionary: **To be the typical feature or quality of something** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

verb (characterise, characterises, characterised, characterising); US spelling characterize

### meaning for a pupil

1) To be the typical feature or quality of something. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#m1)

2) To describe what someone or something is like. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

Used in science and English lessons: "deserts are characterised by little rain", "how would you characterise the main character?". Formal; common in exam questions. Phrases: be characterised by, characterise as.

### examples

- Deserts are characterised by very little rain. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x1)
- How would you characterise the giant in the story? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x2)
- The music is characterised by fast drums. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x3)
- The teacher characterised the class as hard-working. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x4)
- Mammals are characterised by having fur or hair. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x5)
- Her paintings are characterised by bright colours. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x6)
- The firm foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots at uncommon sense, that characterise all the Fables, belong not him but to humanity. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/#x7)

### note

UK, Australia, NZ, Ireland often spell it "characterise"; the USA and Canada spell it "characterize". Nouns: character, characteristic (a typical feature). Not a maths word.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «characterise» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/characterise/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.