characteristic vs eccentricity

characteristic

noun
  • A distinguishing feature of a person or thing. 

  • For a given field or ring, a natural number that is either the smallest positive number n such that n instances of the multiplicative identity (1) summed together yield the additive identity (0) or, if no such number exists, the number 0. 

  • The integer part of a logarithm. 

  • The distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc.). 

adj
  • Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing. 

eccentricity

noun
  • The quality of being eccentric or odd; any eccentric behaviour. 

  • The ratio, constant for any particular conic section, of the distance of a point from the focus to its distance from the directrix. 

  • The eccentricity of the conic section (usually an ellipse) defined by the orbit of a given object around a reference object (such as that of a planet around the sun). 

How often have the words characteristic and eccentricity occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )