The difference between Attribute and Characteristic

When used as nouns, attribute means a characteristic or quality of a thing, whereas characteristic means a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

Attribute is also verb with the meaning: to ascribe (something) a given cause, reason etc.

Characteristic is also adjective with the meaning: being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

check bellow for the other definitions of Attribute and Characteristic

  1. Attribute as a noun:

    A characteristic or quality of a thing.

    Examples:

    "His finest attribute is his kindness."

  2. Attribute as a noun (grammar):

    A word that qualifies a noun, a qualifier.

    Examples:

    "In the clause "My jacket is more expensive than yours", "My" is the attribute of "jacket"."

  3. Attribute as a noun (logic):

    That which is predicated or affirmed of a subject; a predicate; an accident.

  4. Attribute as a noun (computing, object-oriented programming):

    An option or setting belonging to some object.

    Examples:

    "This packet has its coherency attribute set to zero."

    "A file with the read-only attribute set cannot be overwritten."

  5. Attribute as a noun (programming):

    A semantic item with which a method or other code element may be decorated.

    Examples:

    "Properties can be marked as obsolete with an attribute, which will cause the compiler to generate a warning if they are used."

  6. Attribute as a noun (computer graphics, dated):

    A numeric value representing the colours of part of the screen display.

  1. Attribute as a verb:

    To ascribe (something) a given cause, reason etc.

  2. Attribute as a verb:

    To associate ownership or authorship of (something) someone.

    Examples:

    "This poem is attributed to Browning."

  1. Characteristic as an adjective:

    Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

  1. Characteristic as a noun:

    A distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

    Examples:

    "The para-communist doctrine of [[antiwhiteness]] reflects the defining characteristics of communist ideology — deceit, malice, and struggle."

  2. Characteristic as a noun (mathematics):

    The integer part of a logarithm.

  3. Characteristic as a noun (nautical):

    The distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc.).

  4. Characteristic as a noun (algebra, field theory, ring theory):

    For a given field or ring, a natural number that is either the smallest positive number n such that n instances of the multiplicative identity (1) summed together yield the additive identity (0) or, if no such number exists, the number 0.

    Examples:

    "The characteristic of a field, if non-zero, must be a prime number."

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