Characteristic

A characteristic is a distinguishing feature of a person or thing. It may refer to:

Computing

 * Characteristic (biased exponent), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify some type of exponent of a floating point number
 * Characteristic (significand), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify the significand of a floating point number

Science

 * I–V or current–voltage characteristic, the current in a circuit as a function of the applied voltage
 * Receiver operating characteristic

Mathematics

 * Characteristic (algebra) of a ring, the smallest common cycle length of the ring's addition operation
 * Characteristic (logarithm), integer part of a common logarithm
 * Characteristic function, usually the indicator function of a subset, though the term has other meanings in specific domains
 * Characteristic polynomial, a polynomial associated with a square matrix in linear algebra
 * Characteristic subgroup, a subgroup that is invariant under all automorphisms in group theory
 * Characteristic value, another name for the eigenvalue of a matrix
 * Characteristic vector (disambiguation), another name for eigenvector of a matrix
 * Characteristic word, a subclass of Sturmian word
 * Euler characteristic, a topological invariant
 * Method of characteristics, a technique for solving partial differential equations

Other uses

 * Light characteristic, pattern of a lighted beacon
 * Another name for ability score in Dungeons & Dragons