| character | | |
| n. (person) | 1. character, fictional character, fictitious character | an imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (play or film or story).; "she is the main character in the novel" |
| ~ imaginary being, imaginary creature | a creature of the imagination; a person that exists only in legends or myths or fiction. |
| ~ 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. |
| ~ james bond, 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. |
| ~ paul bunyan, bunyan | a legendary giant lumberjack of the north woods of the United States and Canada.; "Paul Bunyan had a blue ox named Babe"; "the lakes of Minnesota began when Paul Bunyan and Babe's footprints filled with water" |
| ~ 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.; "Fagin was a fence who trained boys as pickpockets" |
| ~ 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's monster, frankenstein | 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.; "Kilroy was here" |
| ~ 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. |
| ~ philip marlowe, 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 of hamelin, pied piper | 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 of the apes, tarzan | 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. |
| ~ agonist, protagonist | the principal character in a work of fiction. |
| ~ 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. |
| ~ king arthur, 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. |
| n. (cognition) | 2. character, lineament, quality | a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something.; "each town has a quality all its own"; "the radical character of our demands" |
| ~ attribute, dimension, property | a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished.; "self-confidence is not an endearing property" |
| ~ texture | the essential quality of something.; "the texture of Neapolitan life" |
| n. (attribute) | 3. character, fiber, fibre | the inherent complex of attributes that determines a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions.; "education has for its object the formation of character" |
| ~ trait | a distinguishing feature of your personal nature. |
| ~ personality | the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual.; "their different reactions reflected their very different personalities"; "it is his nature to help others" |
| ~ spirit | a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character. |
| ~ thoughtfulness | the trait of thinking carefully before acting. |
| ~ responsibleness, responsibility | a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one's conduct.; "he holds a position of great responsibility" |
| ~ integrity | moral soundness.; "he expects to find in us the common honesty and integrity of men of business"; "they admired his scrupulous professional integrity" |
| n. (cognition) | 4. character, part, persona, role, theatrical role | an actor's portrayal of someone in a play.; "she played the part of Desdemona" |
| ~ personation, portrayal, characterization, enactment | acting the part of a character on stage; dramatically representing the character by speech and action and gesture. |
| ~ 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. |
| n. (person) | 5. case, character, eccentric, type | a person of a specified kind (usually with many eccentricities).; "a real character"; "a strange character"; "a friendly eccentric"; "the capable type"; "a mental case" |
| ~ adult, grownup | a fully developed person from maturity onward. |
| n. (state) | 6. character | good repute.; "he is a man of character" |
| ~ reputation, repute | the state of being held in high esteem and honor. |
| n. (communication) | 7. character, character reference, reference | a formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential future employer describing the person's qualifications and dependability.; "requests for character references are all too often answered evasively" |
| ~ good word, recommendation, testimonial | something that recommends (or expresses commendation of) a person or thing as worthy or desirable. |
| n. (communication) | 8. character, grapheme, graphic symbol | a written symbol that is used to represent speech.; "the Greek alphabet has 24 characters" |
| ~ printed symbol, written symbol | a written or printed symbol. |
| ~ 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. |
| ~ superscript, superior | a character or symbol set or printed or written above and immediately to one side of another character. |
| ~ subscript, inferior | 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 letter, majuscule, upper-case letter, uppercase, capital | one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis.; "printers once kept the type for capitals and for small letters in separate cases; capitals were kept in the upper half of the type case and so became known as upper-case letters" |
| ~ 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.; "small type is hard to read" |
| ~ 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 of the alphabet, letter | the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech.; "his grandmother taught him his letters" |
| ~ blank, space | a blank character used to separate successive words in writing or printing.; "he said the space is the most important character in the alphabet" |
| ~ 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.; "each rune had its own magical significance" |
| ~ 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.; "Chinese characters are ideograms" |
| ~ radical | a character conveying the lexical meaning of a logogram. |
| ~ stenograph | a shorthand character. |
| n. (attribute) | 9. character | (genetics) an attribute (structural or functional) that is determined by a gene or group of genes. |
| ~ attribute | an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity. |
| ~ unit character | (genetics) a character inherited on an all-or-none basis and dependent on the presence of a single gene. |
| ~ genetic science, genetics | the branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms. |
| v. (contact) | 10. character | engrave or inscribe characters on. |
| ~ engrave, inscribe, grave, scratch | carve, cut, or etch into a material or surface.; "engrave a pen"; "engraved the trophy cupt with the winner's"; "the lovers scratched their names into the bark of the tree" |
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