Definition of "characterization"

It was while he was performing the duties of the store that he acquired the soubriquet "Honest Abe"--a characterization that he never dishonored, and an abbreviation that he never outgrew.

1866, Josiah Gilbert Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln

The art of characterization exhibited by the author fascinates us; we gaze and examine as if we were face to face with real personages, whose passions are laid bare, whose life is traced, whose countenance is portrayed with miraculousness, distinctness and verisimilitude.

1901, Epiphanius Wilson, Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac