habit

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habit

noun acquired mode of behavior, attitude, charrcteristic behavior, characteristically repeated action, common practice, confirmed way, consuetude, consuetudo, convention, conventionality, course of conduct, custom, customary action, customary conduct, disposition, fashion, frequently repeated act, habitus, inclination, inveterate practice, leaning, mannerism, mode, mos, observance, pattern, peculiarity, practice, predisposition, propensity, recurrence, repetition, routine, rule, seccnd nature, style, tendency, tradition, trait, usual procedure, way
Associated concepts: confirmed habits, continued habits, custom and usage, temperate habits

HABIT. A disposition or condition of the body or mind acquired by custom or a frequent repetition of the same act. See 2 Mart. Lo. Rep. N. S. 622.
2. The habit of dealing has always an important bearing upon the construction of commercial contracts. A ratification will be inferred from the mere habit of dealing between the parties; as, if a broker has been accustomed to settle losses on policies in a particular manner, without any objection being made, or with the silent approbation of his principal, and he should afterward settle other policies in the same manner, to which no objection should be made within a reasonable time, a just presumption would arise of an implied ratification; for if the principal did not agree to such settlement he should have declared his dissent. 2 Bouv. Inst. 1313-14.

References in classic literature ?

In the Custom-House, as before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years -- a term long enough to rest a weary brain: long enough to break off old intellectual habits, and make room for new ones: long enough, and too long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being, and withholding myself from toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me.

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Jurgis had got the habit of buying the Sunday paper whenever he had the money; a most wonderful paper could be had for only five cents, a whole armful, with all the news of the world set forth in big headlines, that Jurgis could spell out slowly, with the children to help him at the long words.

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I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow.

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His ordinary habits of life are secret and retired; he seldom visits, or receives company.

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It is evident that men incline to call those conditions habits which are of a more or less permanent type and difficult to displace; for those who are not retentive of knowledge, but volatile, are not said to have such and such a 'habit' as regards knowledge, yet they are disposed, we may say, either better or worse, towards knowledge.

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We have had repeated occasions to speak of the restless and predatory habits of the Crows.

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Not having been actually present on this occasion, should I proceed to relate ALL that passed, or that I fancied passed, it would be degrading myself to the level of those newspapers which are in the habit of retailing private conversations, and which, like most small dealers in such things, never retail fairly.

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They perplex their judgments by a most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits, disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady herself.

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These properties, of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished.

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His children had a great respect for him, credited him with far more learning than he actually possessed, and saw that his habits were not interfered with, if possible.

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But birds breeding on precipices, and good fliers, are unlikely to be exterminated; and the common rock-pigeon, which has the same habits with the domestic breeds, has not been exterminated even on several of the smaller British islets, or on the shores of the Mediterranean.

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Polanco -- Lazo and Bolas -- Partridges -- Absence of Trees -- Deer -- Capybara, or River Hog -- Tucutuco -- Molothrus, cuckoo-like habits -- Tyrant- flycatcher -- Mocking-bird -- Carrion Hawks -- Tubes formed by Lightning -- House struck.