HABITUAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does habitual mean? 

• HABITUAL (adjective)
  The adjective HABITUAL has 1 sense:

1. commonly used or practiced; usual

  Familiarity information: HABITUAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HABITUAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Commonly used or practiced; usual

Synonyms:

accustomed; customary; habitual; wonted

Context example:

with her wonted candor

Similar:

usual (occurring or encountered or experienced or observed frequently or in accordance with regular practice or procedure)

Derivation:

habit ((psychology) an automatic pattern of behavior in reaction to a specific situation; may be inherited or acquired through frequent repetition)

 Context examples 

A habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how a person will interpret and respond to situations.

(Outlook, NCI Thesaurus)

He sat in his chair—still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude to those about him.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I know no one more entitled, by unpretending merit, or better prepared by habitual suffering, to receive and enjoy felicity.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced: Miss Mowcher!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be; but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general, which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She was nearly fainting: all her former habitual dread of her uncle was returning, and with it compassion for him and for almost every one of the party on the development before him, with solicitude on Edmund's account indescribable.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)