subjectiveness; ego; egohood†; essence, noumenon; essentialness† &c
adj.; essential part, quintessence, incarnation, quiddity, gist, pith,
marrow, core, sap, lifeblood, backbone, heart, soul; important part &c
(importance) 642.
principle, nature, constitution, character, type, quality, crasis†,
diathesis†.
habit; temper, temperament; spirit, humor, grain; disposition.
endowment, capacity; capability &c (power) 157.
moods, declensions, features, aspects; peculiarities &c
(speciality) 79; idiosyncrasy, oddity; idiocrasy &c (tendency) 176;
diagnostics.
V. be in the blood, run in the blood; be born so; be intrinsic &c adj..
Adj. derived from within, subjective; intrinsic, intrinsical†;
fundamental, normal; implanted, inherent, essential, natural; innate,
inborn, inbred, ingrained, inwrought; coeval with birth, genetous†,
haematobious†, syngenic†; radical, incarnate, thoroughbred, hereditary,
inherited, immanent; congenital, congenite†; connate, running in the
blood; ingenerate†, ingenite†; indigenous; in the grain &c n.; bred in
the bone, instinctive; inward, internal &c 221; to the manner born;
virtual.
characteristic &c (special) 79, (indicative) 550; invariable,
incurable, incorrigible, ineradicable, fixed.
Adv. intrinsically &c adj.; at bottom, in the main, in effect,
practically, virtually, substantially, au fond; fairly.
Phr. character is higher than intellect [Emerson]; come give us a taste
of your quality [Hamlet]; magnos homines virtute metimur non fortuna
[Lat.] [Nepos]; non numero haec judicantur sed pondere [Lat.] [Cicero];
vital spark of heavenly flame [Pope].
External conditions