the.com/character
who you are when the spotlight dies and no one's keeping score
means The set of moral and mental qualities that make a person who they are — also a fictional person in a story, a printed letter or symbol, or a notably odd individual.
from From the Greek 'kharaktēr,' a stamping tool — and the mark it left behind. The word literally meant the impression scratched or branded into a coin or wax, so 'character' began as something carved IN. From the physical mark (a letter, a symbol) it migrated to the metaphorical one: the distinctive imprint stamped on a person's nature. It reached English through Latin and Old French, and the sense of 'a person in a play' arrived later — fittingly, since each was marked out by their own engraved nature.
- origin
- Greek for an engraving tool that left permanent marks
- in fiction
- only 7 basic plots, infinite people to fill them
- actor's trap
- some never fully escape roles they played
- poker term
- a tell betrays your character in milliseconds
sherlock holmes — detective created by arthur conan doyle in 1887, appeared in 56 stories
harry potter — wizard protagonist of j.k. rowling's seven-book series, 1997-2007
darth vader — sith lord in star wars, anakin skywalker, introduced in 1977 a new hope