The word “character” is often confused with “letter” or “glyph.” But in fact, “character” is a generic term that covers letters, figures, punctuation symbols, and more.

To be more precise:

• one character can be represented by multiple glyphs (such as alternates glyphs of the same character a: single story and double story a);
• one glyph can contain multiple characters (such as ligature fl containing two characters).