Verb (used with object), : Rich metaphors characterize his poetry. ,He characterized her in a few well-chosen words. ,to characterize him as a coward.    From Dictionary.com. 

His numerous and amusing errors are such as characterise the fanaticism that would refute.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur] Reference

Two features characterise trance-sleep in all its grades.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847] Reference

Well, by some one of these marks people generally characterise.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ethics] Reference

The sum total of all these characterise one individual from another.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose His Life and Speeches] Reference

It is not our intention to characterise his excellences as a composer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845.] Reference

These few anecdotes sufficiently characterise the women of this island.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World] Reference

There are three qualities or attributes that characterise human acts, viz.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12] Reference

They appear destitute of the amiable qualities which characterise the Crees.    From Wordnik.com.  [Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory Volume I.] Reference

If the reader wants a name to characterise this system, he may call it the system of.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843] Reference

One cannot characterise this attitude otherwise than as a piece of special pleading.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ireland and the Home Rule Movement] Reference

A gentleman, whose goodness and philanthropy eminently characterise him, recommended to me.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Treatise on Foreign Teas Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, Entitled An Essay On the Nerves] Reference

Words have no power, language has no expression to characterise the emotion that marked it!.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional] Reference

Indeed, those two and thirty kinds of separate manoeuvres that characterise encounters of that kind.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 Books 4, 5, 6 and 7] Reference

The vicious frequently hate others for possessing the same evil qualities that characterise themselves.    From Wordnik.com.  [Venus in Boston; A Romance of City Life] Reference

Yet here and there that lack of enterprise which seems to characterise the Dutch farmer is easily noticeable.    From Wordnik.com.  [With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train] Reference

Now let us observe that a pore is a complete organ in itself, and has at least three things that characterise it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Papers on Health] Reference

Several methods of preserving fruit are in practice, but in general the same principles characterise each one.    From Wordnik.com.  [Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume 5: Fruit and Fruit Desserts; Canning and Drying; Jelly Making, Preserving and Pickling; Confections; Beverages; the Planning of Meals] Reference

So much for one of the debased symptoms which in very bad cases sometimes characterise an otherwise genial failing.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Book-Hunter A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author] Reference

Simplicity, directness, and virility characterise the classic fairy tales and the most memorable relics of folklore.    From Wordnik.com.  [How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell] Reference

"The system would adhere to the high standards of taxpayer confidentiality that characterise the existing system," it said.    From Wordnik.com.  [HMRC considers 'centralising' tax system] Reference

Manlius ordered his son to be executed in presence of the army; and to characterise that harsh severity, the orator uses the word.    From Wordnik.com.  [C. Sallusti Crispi De Bello Catilinario Et Jugurthino] Reference

By what softer name shall we characterise the attempts to connect the war by false facts and false reasoning with accidental scarcity?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1838] Reference

Throughout the whole constellation there is the same order, and harmonious working of part with part, that characterise the solar system.    From Wordnik.com.  [Aether and Gravitation] Reference

By what softer name shall we characterise appeals to the people on a subject which touches their feelings, and precludes their reasoning?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1838] Reference

We found the national colour scheme to have the same violent contrasts which characterise the folk music and the folk poetry of the Magyars.    From Wordnik.com.  [Woman as Decoration] Reference

"I want no recompense, señor," cried the Navarrese, with one of those bursts of free and manly independence that characterise his countrymen.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846] Reference

And are these feelings not worth inculcating? will they not characterise a nation, and are they not the genuine sources of generosity and honour?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 1] Reference

"Mediæval" is a strange adjective, used by Mrs. Orr to characterise a work of which the date is placed by Browning himself in the eighteenth century.    From Wordnik.com.  [Browning's Heroines] Reference

And it is a downright absurdity to speak of the possible existence of a "mind" while divesting it of all the qualities that characterise mind as we know it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Theism or Atheism The Great Alternative] Reference

Having failed in a design, which the word iniquitous is scarcely sufficient to characterise, the House of Assembly decidedly assumed a progressive or reform character.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation Volume 1] Reference

The causes of the modifications which characterise classificatory groups are unknown; the second class of modifications occur in response to adaptational requirements.    From Wordnik.com.  [Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology] Reference

Native, as well as foreign writers, assert that King James the First was the inventor of a new kind of music, which they further characterise as being sweet and plaintive.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century] Reference

It hardly lends itself as yet to historical treatment, and I could hardly hope to maintain with regard to it that objective attitude which should characterise the historian.    From Wordnik.com.  [Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology] Reference

Wastgaggle bow, an heirloom in the family, which gave Mrs. Portheris to understand that if any cordiality was to characterise the occasion, it would have to emanate from her.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Voyage of Consolation (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An American girl in London')] Reference

To-day, if asked what outline, materials and colour schemes characterise our fashions, some would say that almost anything in the way of line, materials and colour were worn.    From Wordnik.com.  [Woman as Decoration] Reference

The same announcement also trumpeted a research project that would "better characterise Victorian society" by quantifying the vocabulary of "every book written during the era".    From Wordnik.com.  [Might Ryu Murakami's switch to the iPad signal the beginning of the end for traditional publishers?] Reference

Before passing to another and the last case, I propose to say a word or two on some of the minor specialties which characterise the pursuit in its less amiable or dignified form.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Book-Hunter A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author] Reference