characteristic vs identifier

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. 

identifier

noun
  • Something that identifies or uniquely points to something or someone else. 

  • One who identifies as a particular type or role; one who says and believes that they are a certain thing. 

  • A formal name used in source code to refer to a variable, function, procedure, package, etc. or in an operating system to refer to a process, user, group, etc. 

  • A primary key. 

  • Someone who identifies; a person who establishes the identity of someone or something. 

  • A guidebook that helps determine the specific class of an object (such as a mushroom, herb, fish, bird, drug, or mineral), or its individual identity (such as that of a star). 

  • A code that distinguishes a particular element from all other elements in a document. 

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