characteristic vs selector

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. 

selector

noun
  • Someone or something which selects or chooses. 

  • An administrator responsible for selecting which players will play for a side. 

  • A matching expression in a stylesheet determining which elements in the markup are affected by a style. 

  • A text string transmitted to a Gopher server, identifying the resource to be retrieved. 

  • A person who is entitled to choose a tract of Crown land to purchase. 

  • A pointer to a structure describing a segment of memory. 

  • A disc jockey. 

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