Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A distinguishing feature, as of a person's character. See Synonyms at quality.
- n. A genetically determined characteristic or condition: a recessive trait.
- n. A stroke with or as if with a pencil.
- n. A slight degree or amount, as of a quality; a touch or trace: a sermon with a trait of humor.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A stroke; a touch.
- n. A distinguishing or peculiar feature; a peculiarity: as, a trait of character.
Wiktionary
- n. an identifying characteristic, habit or trend
- n. computing, programming In object-oriented programming, an uninstantiable collection of methods that provides functionality to a class by using the class’s own interface.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A stroke; a touch.
- n. A distinguishing or marked feature; a peculiarity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a distinguishing feature of your personal nature
Etymologies
- From Middle French, from Latin tractus. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, shot, from Old French, something drawn, shot, from Latin tractus, a drawing out, line; see tract1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Blue-red fingernails, I noticed, even as I was wondering about the word trait.”
“We learn right away that Bella’s main trait is clumsiness, which is used more as a plot device rather than a personality quirk.”
“Of all of these characteristics, Bilbo's strongest trait is "his humanity; he is empathetic with a big heart and generous spirit.”
“But what kind of American trait is claiming victimhood, especially when so many have so much?”
“If a trait is inheritable today, can we not assume it was inheritable in the past?”
“The other "formularic alpha male" trait is the "deep seated pain" they carry due to a tragedy in thier lives.”
“Perhaps he learned his lesson, but another unusual cat trait is that they never do seem to learn caution.”
“A secondary trait is that they trust their social network more than their ability to do objective analysis.”
“Your readers haveprobablyread aboutheroes with any given positive trait, particularly if the trait is commonly associated with a protagonist in your type of book.”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » 2009 » November » 03
“Personally, I feel that the single most important trait is publishing experience, particularly publishing experience related to your field.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘trait’.
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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To a point
to the point
dot, betoken, cusp, nib, neb, nadir, bespeak, eutectic, punctilio, fulcrum, stretch a point, make a point and 69 more...
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Chit Chat
Conversations that are shorter than those featured in my conversations list.
props, frass, narwhal, preggers, mu, hype, heterotopia, sans serif, cow orker, snicker-snack, modality road, boolean poetry and 77 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Evolution
darwin, hms beagle, galapagos, evolution, natural selection, select for, confer, survival advantage, environmental pre..., mutation, genome, homozygous and 193 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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fifi
verbs Adj Adv noun
indulge, convene, solve, dissolve, prospect, prospective, allege, resolve, accountable, administration, amid, agenda and 407 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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Mary and Max (2009)
Words from 2009 'Mary and Max' film.
muddy, puddle, birthmark, piggyback, pensive, gumnut, pompom, salvage, takeaway, oven, shed, deliberate and 112 more...
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GMAT
part of speech, frown, brow, immensely, immense, incomprehensible, toil, concision, concise, proper noun, hyphenated, dash and 190 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2041 more...
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donatas's Words
downwelling, shortchange, serendipity, detrimental, conspicuous, prank, accrual, precipitously, fecundity, onset, wallow, scum and 31 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for trait.
reesetee I was wondering about that.... :-\ Nov 8, 2007
yarb Ahem. Nov 8, 2007
sionnach what yarb said. Well, actually, enunciated. Nov 8, 2007
yarb This silent trailing t is nonsense; I'm from Britain and have only ever heard both t's fully annunciated. Nov 8, 2007
seanahan Apparently, the trailing t is silent in Britain, but never in America, where you would not be understood. Nov 8, 2007
skipvia And the mark of the shark. Or the prevalent feature of the malevolent creature. Nov 7, 2007
sionnach Lethality is a trait of the krait. Nov 7, 2007
kewpid The trailing t is silent. Nov 7, 2007