facet vs characteristic

facet and characteristic both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
facet	Yes	No	No	No
characteristic	Yes	Yes	No	No

As nouns, characteristic is a hypernym of facet; that is, characteristic is a word with a broader meaning than facet:

Other hypernyms of facet include feature.

facet (noun)	characteristic (noun)
a distinct feature or element in a problem	a distinguishing quality; a feature that can be used to identify something
a smooth surface (as of a bone or cut gemstone)	any measurable property of a device measured under closely specified conditions
	a prominent attribute or aspect of something
	the integer part (positive or negative) of the representation of a logarithm; in the expression log 643 = 2.808 the characteristic is 2

facet (adjective)	characteristic (adjective)
	typical or distinctive