classical

English Online Dictionary. What means classical‎? What does classical mean?

English

Etymology

See classic § Etymology for history. By surface analysis, class +‎ -ical = classic +‎ -al

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklæsɪkl̩/
• Hyphenation: clas‧si‧cal

Adjective

classical (comparative more classical, superlative most classical)

1. Of or relating to the first class or rank, especially in literature or art.
2. Of or pertaining to established principles in a discipline.
3. (music) Describing Western music and musicians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
4. (informal, music) Describing art music (rather than pop, jazz, blues, etc), especially when played using instruments of the orchestra.
5. Of or pertaining to the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially to Greek or Roman authors of the highest rank, or of the period when their best literature was produced; of or pertaining to places inhabited by the ancient Greeks and Romans, or rendered famous by their deeds.
   • 1853, Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Atterbury, Francis" in Encyclopædia Britannica (8th ed.). Dated through The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, page 344

     He [Atterbury] directed the classical studies of the undergraduates of his college.

6. Knowledgeable or skilled in the classics; versed in the classics.

   a classical scholar
7. Conforming to the best authority in literature and art; chaste; pure; refined

   classical dance.

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume 1, page 151.

     Classical, provincial, and national synods.

8. (physics) Pertaining to models of physical laws that do not take quantum or relativistic effects into account; Newtonian or Maxwellian.

   Antonyms: quantum, relativistic

Usage notes

Various usage advisers give various prescriptions for differentiating classic from classical by word sense distinctions and by collocational idiomaticness (that is, according to the way in which certain collocations tend to use one suffix more than the other idiomatically). For example (as pointed out by various authorities, including Bryan Garner in Garner's Modern English Usage, fourth edition), classical tends to be preferred in the sense of "the classics" (in ancient literature, modern literature, or music), though classic also sometimes serves in this sense.

Synonyms

• classic (see Usage notes regarding differentiation.)

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

classical (countable and uncountable, plural classicals)

1. (countable) One that is classical in some way; for example, a classical economist.
2. Short for classical music.
3. (chess) Short for classical chess.

Further reading

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “classical”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “classical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• classical, classic at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.