Also 7 car-. [ad. L. charactērismus, Gr. χαρακτηρισμός a marking with a distinctive sign.]

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  † 1.  Description of character; = CHARACTERIZATION 3. Obs.

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1614.  Bp. Hall, Recoll. Treat., 231. The Characterisme of an Honest man.

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1631.  B. Jonson, New Inn, Dram. Personæ. The Persons of the Play, With some short characterism of the chief actors.

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1825.  Blackw. Mag., XVIII. 178. Bamfylde Moore Carew, the anonymous author of characterism.

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  † 2.  Characteristic quality (or qualities collectively); a CHARACTERISTIC. Obs.

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1647.  Torshell, Harmon. Bible, 23. The Characterismes of language peculiar to … different Ages.

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1677.  R. Cary, Chronol., I. II. I. v. 60. Every single Year … hath its proper Characterism.

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a. 1742.  Bentley, Freethinking, III. (1743), 342. Preserving this Lucanism, this characterism of an author.

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1871.  J. S. Brewer, Eng. Studies (1881), 225. Times … when individual characterism had not yet crystallized into one dull uniformity.

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  3.  Representation by means of signs or characters, symbolization.

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1850.  Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 3. 1. Artistic representation … is a representation properly so called … and not a characterism like language.

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