Wiktionary

habitual

English

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WOTD – 23 February 2020

Etymology

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The adjective is derived from Late Middle English habitual (“of one's inherent disposition”),[1] from Medieval Latin habituālis (“customary; habitual”), from Latin habitus (“character; disposition; habit; physical or emotional condition; attire, dress”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship);[2] analysable as habit +‎ -ual. Habitus is derived from habeō (“to have; to hold; to own; to possess”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to grab, take”)) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs).

The noun is derived from the adjective.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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habitual (comparative more habitual, superlative most habitual)

  1. Of or relating to a habit; established as a habit; performed over and over again; recurrent, recurring.
    Her habitual lying was the reason for my mistrust.
    • 1617, Zacharias Ursinus, “Quest. 90. What is the Quickning of the New Man?”, in Henrie Parrie [i.e., Henry Parry], David Pareus, transl., The Svmme of Christian Religion, Deliuered Zacharias Vrsinvs in His Lectures vpon the Catechisme, […] Translated into English […], and Lately Conferred with the Last and Best Latine Edition […], London: Imprinted by H. L. and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson, […], →OCLC, 3rd part (Of Mans Thankefulnes), section 4 (What are the Causes of Conuersion), page 861:
      Thomas Aquinas attributeth preparation vnto free-vvill, but not conuerſion. Now this preparation hee thus coloureth, that it is indeed a furtherance to the habituall grace of cõuersion, but yet through the free aſsiſtance of God mouing vs inwardly.
    • 1624, John Donne, “11. Prayer.”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: Printed by A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC; republished as Geoffrey Keynes, edited by John Sparrow, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions: […], Cambridge: At the University Press, 1923, →OCLC, pages 66–67, lines 28–30, and 1:
      I was baptized in thy Cordiall water, against Original sinne, and I have drunke of thy Cordiall Blood, for my recoverie, from actuall, and habituall sinne, in the other Sacrament.
    • 1655, Rich[ard] Baxter, “Sect. III. The Testimony of Reformed Divines Ascribing as Much to Works as I: And Many of Them Delivering the Same Doctrine.”, in Rich[ard] Baxter’s Confesssion [sic] of His Faith, Especially Concerning the Interest of Repentance and Sincere Obedience to Christ, in Our Justification & Salvation. […], London: Printed by R[obert] W[hite] for Tho[mas] Underhil and Fra[ncis] Tyton, […], →OCLC, page 421:
      There is an actual Grace removing the Power of ſin, before habitual or ſanctifying Grace, the [Holy] Spirit doing it immediately by an omnipotent act, by that which is called actuating moving Grace; Chriſt can and muſt firſt bind the ſtrong man and caſt him out by this working or actual Grace, before he dwels in the houſe of mans heart by habitual and ſanctifying Grace: [...]
    • 1703, Michael Etmullerus [i.e., Michael Ettmüller], “Sect. XIV. Of Diseases Relating to the Lungs and Organs of Respiration.”, in Etmullerus Abridg’d: Or, A Compleat System of the Theory and Practice of Physic. […] Translated from the Last Edition of the Works […], 2nd corrected and much improved edition, London: Printed for Andrew Bell […], and Richard Wellington, […], →OCLC, 1st book, chapter II (Of Inspiration Deprav’d, or Difficult Breathing), article III (Of the Night Mare), page 144:
      The Night-Mare is either Accidental or Habitual. [...] The Habitual is occaſioned by ſome Acid Lymph that diſorders the Spirits and Creates a Paralytic or Convulſive Diſpoſition of the Nerves of the Middriff and Muſcles of the Breast; which by conſent Cramp thoſe of the Wind-Pipe, whoſe Contraction raiſes a ſenſe of ſtrangling, and aboliſhes the power of an Articulate Voice.
    • 1774, W[illiam] Mason, An Affectionate Address to Passionate Professors: Shewing the Blessedness of a Meek and Quiet Spirit: The Evil of Giving Way to Bad Tempers and Sinful Passions; And Pointing Out Some Remedies for Subduing Them, London: Printed for the author; and sold by M. Lewis, […]; and J. Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 11:
      But by a long and habitual courſe of giving way to evil tempers, and indulging ſinful paſſions, a perſon may be ſo blinded thereby as not to ſee the evil thereof, and ſo hardened therein as not to feel the bad effects of them.
    • 1796 September 17, George Washington, “The Address of Gen. Washington to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States”, in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, Pa.: D[avid] C. and S. Claypoole, published 19 September 1796, →OCLC; republished as “Address of General Washington on His Resignation”, in The Scots Magazine; or, General Repository of Literature, History, and Politics, volume LVIII (volume III, New Series), Edinburgh: Printed by Alex[ander] Chapman and Company, for James Watson and Company, […], December 1796, →OCLC, page 832, column 1:
      The nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondneſs, is in ſome degree a ſlave: it is a ſlave to its authority or its affection, either of which is ſufficient to lead it aſtray from its duty and its intereſt.
    • 1820, John Crawfurd, “Domestic Ceremonies and Familiar Usages”, in History of the Indian Archipelago. Containing an Account of the Manners, Arts, Languages, Religions, Institutions, and Commerce of Its Inhabitants. [...] In Three Volumes, volume I, Edinburgh: Printed [by George Ramsay and Company] for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, book I (Character), page 106:
      The habitual use of opium is wholly unlike that of the gentler narcotics, tea, coffee, areca, and even tobacco, and is far more pernicious than that even of any description of fermented liquor.
    • 1841, J[ames] Fenimore Cooper, chapter V, in The Deerslayer: A Tale. […], 1st British edition, volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 155:
      Hurry had felt angered at his sufferings, when first liberated, it is true, but that emotion had soon disappeared in the habitual love of gold, which he sought with the reckless avidity of a needy spendthrift, rather than with the ceaseless longings of a miser.
    • 1997, Christine A. Wynd, “Smoking Cessation”, in Barbara Montgomery Dossey, editor, Core Curriculum for Holistic Nursing, Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Publishers, →ISBN, page 220:
      KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCIES [...] Explore the rationale behind an individual's smoking habit (nicotine addiction/dependence, psychosocial aspects, and habitual cues).
  2. Regular or usual.
    Synonyms: accustomed, customary
    Professor Franklein took his habitual seat at the conference table.
    • 1653, Thomas Shepard, The Sound Beleever. A Treatise of Evangelicall Conversion. Discovering the Work of Christs Spirit, in Reconciling of a Sinner to God, London: Printed for Andrew Crooke […], →OCLC, page 83:
      Our hearts are ſaid to be purified by faith; Acts 15. 9. not our lives onely in the acts of holineſſe and purity, but our heart in the habituall frame of them.
    • 1658, John Bramhall, “The Fourth and Fifth Reasons against This Improbable Fiction, from the No Necessity of It, and the Lesse Advantage of It”, in The Consecration and Succession, of Protestant Bishops Justified. […], Gravenhagh [The Hague]: By John Ramzey, →OCLC, page 54:
      Now he [Edmund Bonner] was deprived, and had no more to doe with the Bishoprick of London, then with the Bishoprick of Conſtantinople, he had the habituall power of the Keies, but had no flock to exercise it upon.
    • 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II (Meeting Streams), pages 310–311:
      There was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not fond of; teasing them occasionally, of course—all except his uncle, or "Nunc," as Sir Hugo had taught him to say; [...]
  3. Of a person or thing: engaging in some behaviour as a habit or regularly.
    He’s a habitual chain-smoker.
    • 1658, Thomas Hall, “[Chap. 3.] Verse 2. For men shall be lovers of themselves, Covetous, Boasters, Proud, Blasphemers, disobedient to Parents, unthankfull, unholy, &c.”, in A Practical and Polemical Commentary: Or, Exposition upon the Third and Fourth Chapters of the Latter Epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy. […], London: Printed by E. Tyler, for John Starkey, […], →OCLC, page [95]:
      [N]o drunkard (i.e.) no Habituall, Impenitent drunkard, ſhall come into Gods Kingdome.
    • a. 1806, William Paley, W[illiam] Hamilton Reid, “Conversion”, in Beauties Selected from the Writings of the Late William Paley, D.D. Archbishop of Carlisle: […], London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely and Jones, […], published 1810, →OCLC, page 123:
      The habitual drunkard, the habitual fornicator, the habitual cheat must be converted. The breaking off a habit, especially when we had placed much of our gratification in it, is alone so great a thing, and such a step in our Christian life, as to merit the name of conversion.
    • 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Emmeline and Cassy”, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume II, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, page 224:
      Legree was not a habitual drunkard. His coarse, strong nature craved, and could endure, a continual stimulation, that would have utterly wrecked and crazed a finer one. But a deep, underlying spirit of cautiousness prevented his often yielding to appetite in such measure as to lose control of himself.
    • 1922 July, “Quotations: Defectives, Criminals, and Misdemeanants”, in J. Harold Williams, editor, The Journal of Delinquency, volume VII, number 4, Whittier, Calif.: California Bureau of Juvenile Research, Whittier State School, →OCLC, page 194:
      That the hospitals for the insane be designated as the proper places for the custody, care, and treatment of constitutionally unstable offenders, whether occasional or habitual offenders, and whether feeble-minded, or non-feeble-minded, [...]
    • 2002, Jose Antonio, Jeffrey R. Stout, “Caffeine and Ephedrine”, in Supplements for Endurance Athletes, Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics Publishers, →ISBN, page 15:
      In addition to the dose of caffeine, there are other items that athletes need to be aware of before utilizing caffeine or caffeine-containing products as an ergogenic aid. Habitual caffeine users may respond differently than naïve users [...]. Research indicates that in habitual users, caffeine may increase fat breakdown, but this does not necessarily result in an increase in fat use for energy or an increase in catecholamines or performance.
    • 2006, Deniz Ucbarasan, Paul Westhead, Mike Wright, “Conclusions”, in Habitual Entrepreneurs, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 205:
      While some novice entrepreneurs have no intention of becoming a habitual entrepreneur, others do. [...] Accordingly, while 'pure' novice entrepreneurs represent the group of novice entrepreneurs that will remain one-time entrepreneurs, 'transient'; novice entrepreneurs will at least attempt to become habitual entrepreneurs.
  5. (grammar) Pertaining to an action performed customarily, ordinarily, or usually.
    Synonym: consuetudinal
    • 1976, Bernard Comrie, “Perfective and Imperfective”, in Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; 2), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 1998, →ISBN, section 1.2.1.1 (Habitual and Other Aspectual Values), page 30:
      In English, for instance, the Habitual Aspect (used to construction) can combine freely with Progressive Aspect, to give such forms as used to be playing.
    • 1999, Alexandra Y[urievna] Aikhenvald, “The Arawak Language Family”, in R[obert] M[alcolm] W[ard] Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, editors, The Amazonian Languages (Cambridge Language Surveys), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, section 6.4 (Other Verbal Categories), page 93:
      The majority of South Arawak, Pareci-Xingu, and Peruvian Arawak languages have a three-fold aspect distinction: completive (completed, perfective or telic action); progressive (action/state in progress; also a durative meaning); and habitual.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

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habitual (plural habituals)

  1. (colloquial) One who does something habitually, such as a serial criminal offender.
    • 1870 January 20, G. Hutchinson, “XXIV. The Present State of the Prison Question in British India.”, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, and Accompanying Documents, for the Year 1869. […] (New York State Senate; 1870, no. 21), Albany, N.Y.: The Argus Company, printers, →OCLC, page 433:
      It has been suggested that we should classify prisoners as casuals and habituals. If a casual is to be distinguished from an habitual simply by the length of his sentence, this classification would hardly answer.
    • 1997, John Pratt, “Dangerousness: The Birth of a Concept”, in Governing the Dangerous: Dangerousness, Law and Social Change, Leichhardt, N.S.W.: The Federation Press, →ISBN, page 31:
      However, in an era when legal punishment was dominated by principles of classical justice and Victorian political economy, what else could one do with the habituals other than provide for an accumulation of prison sentences: the more repeated one's crime, the longer one might be sentenced to imprisonment.
    • 2014, Kevin Roose, chapter 11, in Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-crash Recruits, New York, N.Y.: Grand Central Publishing, →ISBN:
      Habituals, generally speaking, are the people who might in the context of college admissions be referred to as "legacies." These are people who choose to go into finance either because their parents or siblings work in finance, or because they've grown up with financiers in their immediate social circle. Strictly speaking, most Habituals make it to Wall Street on their own, but their upbringings (in wealthy or upper-middle-class communities) and their educational opportunities (at private high schools and top-tier colleges) have made finance a destination that, if not inevitable, is at least a known and respected option for people in their circumstances.
  2. (grammar) A construction representing something done habitually.
    • 1976, Bernard Comrie, “Perfective and Imperfective”, in Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; 2), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 1998, →ISBN, section 1.2.1.1 (Habitual and Other Aspectual Values), page 30:
      Since any situation that can be protracted sufficiently in time, or that can be iterated a sufficient number of times over a long enough period – and this means, in effect, almost any situation – can be expressed as a habitual, it follows that habituality is in principle combinable with various other aspectual values, namely those appropriate to the kind of situation that is prolonged or iterated.
    • 2001, F[rank] R[obert] Palmer, “Subjunctive and Irrealis”, in Mood and Modality (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 191:
      Indeed, [Thomas] Givón (1994: 323) suggests the habitual is a 'hybrid modality', sharing some features of realis (higher assertive certainty) and some of irrealis ('lack of specific temporal reference; lack of specific evidence; …').
    • 2004, Elly van Gelderen, “Aspect: The Tense Aspect Parameter and Inner to Outer Aspect”, in Grammaticalization as Economy (Linguistik Aktuell = Linguistics Today; 71), Amsterdam, Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, section 5 (Giorgi & Pianesi: The Demise of the Infinitival Ending and Aspect), page 221:
      Stative verbs such as know and see are not associated with [+perf] since, like habituals, they are associated with a generic operator.
    • 2007, Raymond Hickey, “The Emergence of Irish English”, in Irish English: History and Present-day Forms (Studies in English Language), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 216:
      As an expression of the iterative habitual suffixal -s is by no means recent. It is found in emigrant letters from the early nineteenth century. [...] O'Hara's uses as an inflected first person singular as an iterative habitual, e.g. I hopes the [ ] family are well …, I hopes you will except [sic!] my thanks for the same … (Kean O'Hara, 1818–19). This usage is still to be found in east coast varieties of Irish English.
    • 2007, Howard Jackson, “Grammar: Morphology and Syntax”, in Key Terms in Linguistics, London, New York, N.Y.: Continuum, →ISBN, page 23:
      For example, repeated occurrence (iteratives or ‘habituals’) in English may be signalled by repeatedly or several times (‘He shouted repeatedly’), or it may be part of the meaning of the verb (‘The bird fluttered its wings’).

Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “habituāl, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “habitual, adj. and n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1898; “habitual, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Catalan

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Pronunciation

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Adjective

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habitual m or f (masculine and feminine plural habituals)

  1. habitual; usual

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Galician

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Adjective

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habitual m or f (plural habituais)

  1. habitual
  2. common

Portuguese

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Pronunciation

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  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /a.bi.tuˈaw/ [a.bi.tʊˈaʊ̯], (faster pronunciation) /a.biˈtwaw/ [a.biˈtwaʊ̯]
 
  • (Portugal) IPA(key): /ɐ.biˈtwal/ [ɐ.βiˈtwaɫ]
    • (Southern Portugal) IPA(key): /ɐ.biˈtwa.li/ [ɐ.βiˈtwa.li]

  • Hyphenation: ha‧bi‧tu‧al

Adjective

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habitual m or f (plural habituais)

  1. habitual (behaving in a regular manner, as a habit)
  2. habitual (recurring, or that is performed over and over again)
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Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French habituel.

Adjective

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habitual m or n (feminine singular habituală, masculine plural habituali, feminine and neuter plural habituale)

  1. usual

Declension

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Declension of habitual
singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative/
accusative 		indefinite habitual habituală habituali habituale
definite habitualul habituala habitualii habitualele
genitive/
dative 		indefinite habitual habituale habituali habituale
definite habitualului habitualei habitualilor habitualelor

Spanish

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Etymology

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From Latin habituālis.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /abiˈtwal/ [a.β̞iˈt̪wal]
  • Rhymes: -al
  • Syllabification: ha‧bi‧tual

Adjective

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habitual m or f (masculine and feminine plural habituales)

  1. habitual

Derived terms

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Noun

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habitual m (plural habituales)

  1. (Louisiana) beans
    No quiero nada más que habitual, café, y pan.
    I don't want anything more than beans, coffee, and bread.
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Further reading

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