char·ac·ter·is·tic / ˌkariktəˈristik/ • adj. typical of a particular person, place, or thing: large farms are characteristic of this area.• n. 1. a feature or quality belonging typically to a person, place, or thing and serving to identify it: inherited characteristics such as blood groups.2. Math. the whole number or integral part of a logarithm, which gives the order of magnitude of the original number.DERIVATIVES: char·ac·ter·is·ti·cal·ly adv.

characteristic (biased exponent) See floating-point notation.