charactery

char·ac·ter·y

(kăr′ək-tə-rē, kə-răk′-)

n. pl. character·ies

A system of characters or symbols used to express or convey thought and meaning.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

charactery

(ˈkærɪktərɪ; -trɪ)

n, pl -teries

1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the use of symbols to express thoughts

2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the group of symbols so used

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

char•ac•ter•y

(ˈkær ɪk tə ri, -tri)

n.

1. using characters or symbols to express meaning.

2. characters or symbols collectively.

[1580–90]

charactery

1. a system of symbols used to represent ideas.
2. expression by means of such symbols.

See also: Alphabet, Representation

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

â€¡ Fairies use flowers for their charactery. - Merry Wives of Windsor.

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Charactery. I think if I keep getting better hopefully there could be interesting parts."

Prince has Phil of screen royalty; Thinking outside the box with Nicola Methven & Mark Jefferies; SQUARE EYES

As we have seen in the earlier instances of his poetry and letters, Keats's sense of mediation relies on a residual system of figuration emanating from scriptural obscurity, and remains mostly tied to textual media, encompassing language, poetry, writing, and books: from the linguistic "darkness" of Bertha's book to the volume itself, from "charactery" to the "high piled books" that contain them ("When I have fears that I may cease to be" [3]).

Keats's ways: the dark passages of mediation and why he gives up Hyperion

Instead of being overshadowed by her more famous sisters, Morrison's Anne, as several reviewers noted, is a strong and significant charactery She is enthusiastic, a mover--she wants to work, to start a school, to go to London; she is a feminist: "Just because we're women doesn't mean we can't work" (Morrison, 8).

After Chekhov: The Three Sisters of Beth Henley, Wendy Wasserstein, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Blake Morrison

(10) This has a salvific charactery Additionally, righteousness should be understood within the context of the covenantal relationship of God to Israel.

"Election" and the "People of God": an orthodox theological perspective

The genre of the charactery itself is also rigidly artificial, inspired by classical prototypes (notably Seneca) and intended to allow authors to show their skills at pithy, succinct descriptions of appearance and actions.

Groves, Peter and Geoffrey Hiller, eds, English Character-Books of the Renaissance: An Anthology

They explore such dimensions of the plays as Renaissance family politics and The Taming of the Shrew; gender, sexuality, and theories of exchange in The Merchant of Venice; charactery; and Dryden, Vigney's Othello, and British cultural expansion.

Essaying Shakespeare

Constellation charactery. My dictionary defines charactery as "a system of written letters or symbols used in the expression of thought." We all know that the lines we use to connect the stars to form a constellation pattern are a human attempt to impose order on an otherwise disorderly assortment of lights.

Writing in the sky: long before smoke-trailing biplanes of the 1930s, star patterns provided "reading material" for people looking up

The art of charactery, as the aftermath of Mark Antony's disquisition on honor points out, can also be violent.

The persistence of character

Later, he hopes that the debate over torture won't focus on the "almost tragi-comedy of who did what and when but on the status of torture in the American charactery

Ignoring torture: no excuse

Charactery remains among the most distinctive of seventeenth-century English prose genres, in that it combines high classicism--tracing its progeny back to the Characteres ethici of Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus--with contemporary comedy of manners.

Characters: Together with Poems, News, Edicts, and Paradoxes based on the Eleventh Edition of A Wife Now the Widow of Sir Thomas Overbury