Pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character; exhibiting the peculiar qualities of a person or thing; peculiar; distinctive: as, a characteristic distinction; with characteristic generosity, he emptied his purse.Relative to a characteristic or characteristics in sense II., 2 or .n. That which serves to characterize, or which constitutes or indicates the character; anything that distinguishes one person or thing or place from another; a distinctive feature.n. In mathematics: The index or integer part of an artificial or Briggsian logarithm. See logarithm. A number, one of a set of numbers, μ, ν, etc., referring to an i-way spread of figures of a given kind, and such that the number of these figures which satisfy any i-fold condition is equal to aμ + bν +, etc., where a, b, etc., are whole numbers depending upon the nature of this condition. This definition, given by Schubert in 1879, is a generalization of that given by Chasles in 1864. Any number related in a remarkable way to a figure: a use of the term not allowed by careful writers, A number referring to a higher singularity of an algebraical curve or surface, and expressing how many simple singularities of a given kind it replaces, The rational integral function (in its lowest terms) whose vanishing expresses the satisfaction of the condition of which it is the characteristic.n. In philology See characteristic letter or sound, above.