physique

physique, build, habit, constitution all mean bodily makeup or structure or organization peculiar to an individual or to a group or kind of individuals.

Physique applies to the structure, appearance, or strength of the body of an individual or of a race and may connote such qualities as capacity for endurance, stamina, or predisposition to disease

{

a people of robust physique

}

{

a man of slight physique

}

Build, though often interchangeable with physique, may distinctively suggest not so much the makeup of a body as its conformation; it tends to call attention to such qualities as size, structure, and weight and rarely when used of man or an animal to health or the lack of it

{

a horse of heavy build

}

{

a person of fleshy build but of feeble physique

}

Habit implies reference to the body as the outward evidence of natural or acquired characteristics that suggest the nature of one's physical condition and capabilities; thus, a full habit suggests an appearance marked by stoutness, redness, and congestion of the visible blood vessels

{

a youth of consumptive habit

}

{

old Mrs. Mingott's . . . being, like many persons of active mind and dominating will, sedentary and corpulent in her habit— Wharton

}

Constitution applies to the makeup of the body, especially of an individual, as affected by the complex of mental or physical conditions which collectively determine its state (as of healthiness) and its powers (as of endurance and resistance)

{

persons of sickly constitutions are given to worry

}

{

buy them horses to ride, if you want them to enjoy good health and sound constitutions— Jefferies

}

{

the key to her nature lay, I think, largely in her fragile constitution— Ellis

}

Analogous words: *body: *structurfe, framework, anatomy: *system, organism