the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Character
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or (Gr. xaparcrr i p, from Xaparmw, to scratch), a distinctive mark (spelt "caracter" up to the 16th century, with other variants); so applied to symbols of notation or letters of the alphabet; more figuratively, the distinguishing traits of anything, and particularly the moral and mental qualities of an individual human being, the sum of those qualities which distinguish him as a personality. From the latter usage "a character" becomes almost identical with "reputation"; and in the sense of "giving a servant a character," the word involves a written testimonial. For the law relating to servants' char acters see Master And Servant. A further development is the use of "character" to mean an "odd or eccentric person"; or of a "character actor," to mean an actor who plays a highlycoloured strange part. The word is also used as the name of a form of literature, consisting of short descriptions of types cf character. Well-known examples of such "characters" are those of Theophrastus and La Bruyere, and in English, of Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and Sir Thomas Overbury.
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Character'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/c/character.html. 1910.
