Habit I ˈhæbɪt Change Force Noun Eating Good/Bad

• you need to change your eating habits.
• good/bad habits
• most of us have some undesirable habits.
• the strategy is helping children develop the habit of reading for fun.

habit

1. a thing that you do often and almost without thinking, especially something that is hard to stop doing
• You need to change your eating habits.
• good/bad habits
• Most of us have some undesirable habits.
• The strategy is helping children develop the habit of reading for fun.
• It's all right to borrow money occasionally, but don't let it become a habit.
• I'd prefer you not to make a habit of it.
• I'm trying to break the habit of staying up too late.
• These things have a habit of coming back to haunt you.
• I'm not in the habit of letting strangers into my apartment.
• I've got into the habit of turning on the TV as soon as I get home.

Extra Examples

• She has some very annoying habits.
• He has the irritating habit of biting his nails.
• Healthy lifestyle habits begin when you're young.
• I found some of his personal habits rather disconcerting.
• I got out of the habit of getting up early.
• I had fallen into my old bad habit of leaving everything until the last minute.
• Make a habit of noting down any telephone messages.
• It was a nervous habit she'd had for years.
• It's hard to change the habit of a lifetime.
• Mental habits are not easily changed.
• The pills affected your sleeping habits.
• an effort to change the buying habits of the British public
• women's television viewing habits
• Life has a nasty habit of repeating itself.
• You must break yourself of the habit.
• one of his more endearing habits
2. usual behaviour
• I only do it out of habit.
• I'm a creature of habit (= I have a fixed and regular way of doing things).

Extra Examples

• Mr Norris woke up early from force of habit.
• Much of what we do in daily life is done by habit.
3. a strong need to keep using drugs, alcohol or cigarettes regularly
• He began to finance his habit through burglary.
• She's tried to give up smoking but just can't kick the habit.
• a 50-a-day habit
4. a long piece of clothing worn by a monk or nun
5. if you do something from or out of force of habit, you do it without thinking about it and in a particular way because you have always done it that way in the past
• It's force of habit that gets me out of bed at 6.15 each morning.

Word Origin

• Middle English: from Old French abit, habit, from Latin habitus ‘condition, appearance’, from habere ‘have, consist of’. The term originally meant ‘dress, attire’, later coming to denote physical or mental constitution.