disposition

disposition 1 *disposal

Analogous words: administering or administration, dispensing or dispensation (see corresponding verbs at ADMINISTER): management, direction, controlling or control, conducting or conduct (see corresponding verbs at CONDUCT): arrangement, ordering (see corresponding verbs at ORDER)

2 Disposition, temperament, temper, complexion, character, personality, individuality are comparable when they mean the prevailing and dominant quality or qualities which distinguish or identify a person or group.

Disposition applies to the predominating bent or constitutional habit of one's mind or spirit

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ages of fierceness have overlaid what is naturally kindly in the dispositions of ordinary men and women— Russell

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the taint of his father's insanity perhaps appeared in his unbalanced disposition— E. S. Bates

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Temperament applies to the sum total of characteristics that are innate or inherent and the result of one's physical, emotional, and mental organization

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a nervous, bilious temperament

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I verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical temperament, can avoid a strong passion of some kind— Byron

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shall I ever be cheerful again, happy again? Yes. And soon. For I know my temperament— Mark Twain

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Temper (compare temper under MODERATE vb) implies a combination of the qualities and especially those acquired through experience which determine the way one (as a person, a people, an age) meets the situations, difficulties, or problems that confront him

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there was a general confidence in her instinctive knowledge of the national temper— J. R. Green

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the leaders of forlorn hopes are never found among men with dismal minds. There must be a natural resiliency of temper which makes them enjoy desperate ventures— Crothers

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Unlike the foregoing terms temper may suggest an acquired or transient state of mind con-trolling one's acts and decisions

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after four years of fighting, the temper of the victors was such that they were quite incapable of making a just settlement— Huxley

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Complexion implies some fundamentally distinctive quality based on mood, attitude, and ways of thinking that determines the impression one produces on others

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the rationalist mind ... is of a doctrinaire and authoritative complexion: the phrase "must be" is ever on its lips— James

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great thinkers of various complexion, who, differing in many fundamental points, all alike assert the relativity of truth— Ellis

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Character applies to the aggregate of qualities, especially moral qualities, which distinguish an individual at any one time in his development, which constantly tend to become more or less fixed, and which must be taken as a whole into consideration in any ethical judgment of him

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he is a man of character

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in his youth his character was weak and unstable

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that inexorable law of human souls that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that determines character— George Eliot

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Often character means such an aggregate of qualities brought to a high state of moral excellence by right principles and right choices and by the rejection of anything that weakens or debases

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when we say of such and such a man that he has . . . character, we generally mean that he has disciplined his temperament, his disposition, into strict obedi-ence to the behests of duty— Brownell

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Personality also applies to the aggregate of qualities which distinguish an individual, but the term differs from character in that it implies his being distinguished as a person rather than as a moral being. In general personality may be said to be revealed in unconscious as well as in conscious acts or movements, in physical and emotional as well as in mental and moral behavior, and especially in a person's relations to others; thus, one may know very little about the character of an acquaintance, yet have a very definite idea of his personality. Therefore personality is qualified not as good or bad but by an adjective implying the extent to which it pleases, displeases, or otherwise impresses the observer

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there was a pious and good man, but an utterly negligible personality— Mackenzie

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the mere presence of personality in a work of art is not sufficient, because the personality revealed may be lacking in charm— Benson

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Hence personality often distinctively means personal magnetism or charm

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personality is not something that can be sought; it is a radiance that is diffused spontaneously— Ellis

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Individuality implies a personality that distinguishes one from all others; often it connotes the power of impressing one's personality on others

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a man of marked individuality

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she is a pleasant person but has no individuality

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Sophia quietened her by sheer force of individuality— Bennett

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an individuality, a style of its own— Cather

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