Refine this word faster
Historical
Definitions
- 1 Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.
"July 4, 1776, is a historic date. A great deal of historical research has been done on the events leading up to that day."
- 2 Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.; About history; depicting persons or events from history.
"There is no acknowledgment—because there is no understanding—that sometimes historical fiction departs from facts in order to reach for more abstract, thematic, or complexly intuitive truths that even the most diligently fact-checked histories and biographies can fail to illuminate."
- 3 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.
"Sith thou gaue to vs a floure most riall Redolent in cronicles with historicall syght."
- 4 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.; Set in the past.
- 5 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.; Former, erstwhile; (religious, obsolete) lapsed, nominal. uncommon
"But concerning some persons of your neighbourhood... their Confession [of Faith] is rather an opinion than a true and sincere earnestness, for all of them are not that which they boast and glory to be; there may be many honest hearts among them; but many of them are only historical and titular, and desire only to show themselves, and to be applauded ..."
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.; One of various tenses or moods used to tell about past events, historic (tense).
"The historical present is often treated as a principal tense, but there are exceptions and sometimes both constructions appear in the same passage."
- 7 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.; Synonym of hereditary or evolutionary. obsolete
- 8 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.
"The Royal Historical Society"
- 9 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.; Done in the manner of a historian: written as a development over time or in accordance with the historical method.
"The historical development of skill in foreshortening will be demonstrated in another section. Only the more perfect phases will be treated here."
- 10 Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.; Synonym of historic: important or likely to be important to history and historians. uncommon
"A certain ball which a noble Duchess gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named year is historical. All Brussels had been in a state of excitement about it, and I have heard from ladies who were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front."
- 11 Forming compound adjectives with the meaning "historical/~" or "historically"
"historical-political"
- 1 belonging to the past; of what is important or famous in the past wordnet
- 2 having once lived or existed or taken place in the real world as distinct from being legendary wordnet
- 3 used of the study of a phenomenon (especially language) as it changes through time wordnet
- 4 of or relating to the study of history wordnet
- 1 A historical romance.
"However, as regular romance readers know, the romance novels that appear on the best-seller lists are not Harlequins at all, but rather historicals and contemporaries, which vary widely from the Harlequin pattern in style, plot, and character."
Etymology
From Latin historicus (“historical”) + -al (forming adjectives denoting of or relating to). By surface analysis, history + -ical.
From Latin historicus (“historical”) + -al (forming adjectives denoting of or relating to). By surface analysis, history + -ical.
See also for "historical"
Next best steps
Mini challenge
Unscramble this word: historical