CHARACTER (Gr. xapareri7p, from xap&

See also:

• CREW (sometimes explained as a sea term of Scandinavian origin, cf. O. Icel. kris, a swarm or crowd, but now regarded as a shortened form of accrue, accrewe, used in the 16th century in the sense of a reinforcement, O. Fr. acreue, from accrofire, to grow,
• CREW, NATHANIEL CREW, 3RD BARON (1633–1721)

crew, 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 highly-coloured strange part . The word is also used as the name of a form of literature, consisting of short descriptions of types of 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 .