habitual

adj

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.”

   “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.”

   “I vvas baptized in thy Cordiall vvater, againſt Original ſinne, and I haue drunke of thy Cordiall Blood, for my recouerie, from actuall, and habituall ſinne, in the other Sacrament.”

   “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: [...]”

   “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.”

2. Regular or usual.

   “Professor Franklein took his habitual seat at the conference table.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “[N]o drunkard (i.e.) no Habituall, Impenitent drunkard, ſhall come into Gods Kingdome.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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, [...]”

4. Pertaining to an action performed customarily, ordinarily, or usually.

   “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.”

   “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.”

noun

1. (colloquial)One who does something habitually, such as a serial criminal offender.

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. A construction representing something done habitually.

   “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.”

   “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; …').”

   “Stative verbs such as know and see are not associated with [+perf] since, like habituals, they are associated with a generic operator.”

   “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.”

   “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’).”