Character or Characters may refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

Literature

* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theophrastus

Music

* ''Character'' (Dark Tranquillity album), 2005 * ''Character'' (Julia Kent album), 2013 * ''Character'', an album by Rachael Sage, 2020 * ''Characters'' (John Abercrombie album), 1977 * ''Characters'' (Stevie Wonder album), 1987 * "Character", a song by

Ryokuoushoku Shakai , abbreviated as , is a Japanese pop rock band formed in 2012 in Aichi Prefecture. The band consists of vocalist and guitarist Haruko Nagaya, guitarist Issei Kobayashi, keyboardist Peppe, and bassist Shingo Anami. Originally a five-member group, ...

, 2022

Types of entity

Character (arts) In fiction, a character is a person or being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distincti ...

, an agent within a work of art, including literature, drama, cinema, opera, etc. **

Character actor A character actor is an actor known for playing unusual, eccentric, or interesting character (arts), characters in supporting roles, rather than leading ones.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrie ...

, an actor known for playing unusual, eccentric or interesting characters in supporting roles ** Character sketch or character, a literary description of a character type * Game character (disambiguation), various types of characters in a video game or role playing game **

Player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional Character (arts), character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters tha ...

, as above but who is controlled or whose actions are directly chosen by a player **

Non-player character A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster (or referee) rather than by a ...

, as above but not player-controlled, frequently abbreviated as NPC

Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media

* ''Character'' (film), a 1997 Dutch film based on Bordewijk's novel * ''

Charaktery ''Charaktery'' (, ''Personalities'') is a monthly magazine published in Poland and covering psychology-related topics, such as relationships, mental health, the functioning of the brain, neuropsychology, emotions, overcoming addictions, depressi ...

'', a monthly magazine in Poland * '' Netflix Presents: The Characters'', an improvised sketch comedy show on Netflix

Mathematics

Character (mathematics) In mathematics, a character is (most commonly) a special kind of function from a group to a field (such as the complex numbers). There are at least two distinct, but overlapping meanings. Other uses of the word "character" are almost always qual ...

, a homomorphism from a group to a field *

Characterization (mathematics) In mathematics, a characterization of an object is a set of conditions that, while possibly different from the definition of the object, is logically equivalent to it. To say that "Property ''P'' characterizes object ''X''" is to say that not only ...

, the logical equivalency between objects of two different domains. *

Character theory In mathematics, more specifically in group theory, the character of a group representation is a function on the group that associates to each group element the trace of the corresponding matrix. The character carries the essential information a ...

, the mathematical theory of special kinds of characters associated to group representations *

Dirichlet character In analytic number theory and related branches of mathematics, a complex-valued arithmetic function \chi: \mathbb\rightarrow\mathbb is a Dirichlet character of modulus m (where m is a positive integer) if for all integers a and b: # \chi(ab) = \ch ...

, a type of character in number theory *

Multiplicative character In mathematics, a multiplicative character (or linear character, or simply character) on a group ''G'' is a group homomorphism from ''G'' to the multiplicative group of a field , usually the field of complex numbers. If ''G'' is any group, then t ...

, a homomorphism from a group to the multiplicative subgroup of a field

Morality and social science

Character education Character education is an umbrella term loosely used to describe the teaching of children and adults in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditiona ...

, a US term for values education *

Character structure A character structure is a system of secondary traits manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and to the environment. A child whose nurture and/or education cause them to ha ...

, a person's traits *

Moral character Moral character or character (derived from ) is an analysis of an individual's steady Morality, moral qualities. The concept of ''character'' can express a variety of attributes, including the presence or lack of virtues such as empathy, courag ...

, an evaluation of a particular individual's durable moral qualities

Symbols

Character (symbol) A character is a semiotic sign, symbol, grapheme, or glyph typically a letter, a numerical digit, an ideogram, a hieroglyph, a punctuation mark or another typographic mark. History The Ancient Greek word () is an agent noun of the verb ...

, a sign or symbol **

Character (computing) In computing and telecommunications, a character is the internal representation of a character (symbol) used within a computer or system. Examples of characters include letters, numerical digits, punctuation marks (such as "." or "-"), and ...

, a unit of information roughly corresponding to a grapheme

Other uses

Character (biology) A phenotypic trait, simply trait, or character state is a distinct variant of a phenotypic characteristic of an organism; it may be either inherited or determined environmentally, but typically occurs as a combination of the two.Lawrence, Eleano ...

, the abstraction of an observable physical or biochemical trait of an organism *

Character (income tax) Character is the type of income to calculate the taxpayer's tax liability. In the United States, the Supreme Court decided ( Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co.) that income is an accession to wealth, however capital gain is of different charact ...

, a type of income for tax purposes in the US *

Sacramental character Some Christian denomination, Christian denominations believe that a sacramental character, an indelible Spirituality, spiritual ''mark'' (the meaning of the word ''character'' in Latin language, Latin), is imprinted by any of three of the seven sa ...

, a Catholic teaching *

Neighbourhood character Neighborhood character refers to the 'look and feel of an area', in particular a residential area. It also includes the activities that occur there. In everyday usage, it can often be synonymous with local character, residential character, urban cha ...

, the look and feel of a built environment