mannerism

Definition

A noticeable personal habit, a verbal or other (often, but not necessarily unconscious) habitual behavior peculiar to an individual.

Etymology

From manner + -ism.

Example Sentences

• "In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity."
• "artists […] dabblingly pursuing a kind of formalist mannerism merely in the interest of careerism"
• "He generally spoke without academic mannerism, though on occasion he dipped into the over-wrought thickets of eduspeak to find words like “antithetical” or “foci” or “interface.”"