Habit

Habitus (Fr). Habitus (Ge). Hábito (Sp). Abito (It). 晶癖 (Ja)

The crystal habit is the characteristic external shape of an individual crystal or groups of crystals. For a single crystal, the habit is a description of its general shape and forms, as well as the description of their actual development in the crystal. On the basis of the development of its faces, a crystal is classified in three categories:

• euhedral, when the faces are well-developed due to uncrowded growth;
• subhedral, when it shows only partially developed faces;
• anhedral, when the faces are not developed and cannot be indexed without ambiguity.