The general shape of a crystal and the proportions of its bounding sides–such as elongate, tabular, bladed, or other–is known as its habit, from the Latin habitus. The term habit as a nontechnical characterization of appearance first came into mineralogical usage from biology early in the 20th century. The surfaces of minerals, though commonly consisting of well-defined plane facets meeting in geometrically precise lines and points, are susceptible to infinite variation in the combinations and sizes of these facets, much as the shapes of animals or plants. The faces at the same time conform to strict and precise laws. Known in ancient times, the geometric regularities of the faces of crystals making up complex polyhedral surfaces were illustrated in the 16th century by Conrad Gesner and in the early 17th century by Anselmus de Boodt. The observation by Robert Hooke and Nicholas Steno in the latter 17th century of the constancy of the angles between faces of crystals of a given species...
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Cross-references
Barker Index of Crystals; Crystallography: History; Crystallography; Directions and Planes; Lattice; Point Group; Polycrystal; Skeletal Crystals; Space-Group Symbol; Symmetry; Twinning.
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Schneer, C.J. (1981). Crystal habit . In: Mineralogy. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30720-6_29
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