historical
UK/hɪˈstɒɹɪkəl//hɪˈstɔɹɪkəl/
historical adjective: of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.
Adjective
historical (comparative more historical, superlative most historical)
- 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.
- The historical works of Lord Macaulay and Edward Gibbon are in and of themselves historic.
- 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.2015 January 28, Mark Harris, “How 'Selma' Got Smeared”, in Grantland
- Hagiography, the historical genre which is the subject of this week's seminar, comprises narratives concerned with the saints and their achievements, especially the miracles which God has performed through them and on their behalf.2017 December 8, Paul Hayward, “Seminar VII: Hagiography”, in Medieval Primary Sources—Genre, Rhetoric and Transmission
- Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.
- Sith thou gaue to vs a floure most riall Redolent in cronicles with historicall syght.1521, Henry Bradshaw, The Holy Lyfe and History of Saynt Werburge, Ballad 1
- Set in the past.
- Former, erstwhile; (religious, obsolete) lapsed, nominal.
- 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...1886, Jacob Boehme translated by John Ellistone in Works, volume 1, epistle 2, §49, page 39
- 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.2010, Gerd Haverling, “Actionality, tense, and viewpoint”, in New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, page 363
- Synonym of hereditary or evolutionary.
- Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.
- The Royal Historical Society
- The State Historical Society of Wisconsin
- 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.1913, Herbert J. Spinden, A Study of Maya Art: Its Subject Matter and Historical Development, page 27
- ...No studies have investigated the problem’s historic roots. Thus, this paper explores the perspective of “early insiders” through an historical analysis of autobiographies, biographies, and magazine articles written by and about early US newspaper reporters and editors.2003 June, Denise E. DeLorme et al., “Journalists' Hostility towards Public Relations”, in Public Relations Review, volume 23, number 2
- Synonym of historic: important or likely to be important to history and historians.
- 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...1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
- EB: We live in a special time of awakening. This is a historical moment for Egypt
DS: In which many see you as a kind of messiah.
EB: I neither can nor want to be a savior.2010 July 12, Erich Follath et al., “Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei”, in Der Spiegel
- Forming compound adjectives with the meaning "historical/~" or "historically"
- historical-political
Noun
historical (plural historicals)
- 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.1999, Anne K. Kaler, Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek, Romantic Conventions, page 63
historical meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
historical in Hindi
- pertaining to history
- ऐतिहासिक aitihāsik
historical in Tamil
- வரலாற்றுச் சார்பான, வரலாற்றுக்குரிய, வரலாற்றுத் தொடர்புடைய, வரலாற்றிலிருந்து பெறப்பட்ட, வரலாற்றைப் பின்பற்றிய, வரலாற்றை அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்ட
historical in Marathi
- historical, historic
- ऐतिहासिक aitihāsik
historical in Urdu
- pertaining to history
- تاریخی tārīxī
More languagesFewer languages
- historical in Bengali
- ঐতিহাসিক ōitihaśik
- historical in Telugu
- చారిత్రక cāritraka
- historical in Malayalam
- ചരിത്രപരമായ
- historical in Kannada
- ಸಂಪ್ರದಾಯಬದ್ಧ, ಪ್ರಾಚೀನ, ಐತಿಹಾಸಿಕ
- historical in Punjabi
- ਇਤਿਹਾਸਕ, ਇਤਿਹਾਸਿਕ
- historical in Gujarati
- ઐતિહાસિક aitihāsik
- historical in Odia
- ଐତିହାସିକ
- historical in Assamese
- ঐতিহাসিক oitihaxik
- historical in Nepali
- ऐतिहासिक aitihāsik
- historical in Pashto
- تاريخي tārixí
- historical in Tagalog
- makasaysayan, masaysayin, pangkasaysayan
- historical in Arabic
- تَارِيخِي tārīḵī
- historical in Malay
- bersejarah
- historical in Indonesian
- historis, bersejarah
- historical in Persian
- تاریخی târixi
- historical in Thai
- ประวัติศาสตร์ bprà-wàt-dtì-sàat
- historical in Vietnamese
- thuộc về sử học, lịch sử
Examples of historical in a sentence
- an important historical personage
- The family tree boasts an astonishing array of celebrated historical figures from the prophet Isaiah to Sir Isaiah Berlin, from Felix Mendelssohn to Karl Marx and Moses Montefiore.2004 October 24, Bill Gladstone, “The oldest family in the world”, in Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
- The idea that hagiography can be used to write about history, but in itself does not contain a historical sense, seems not to be limited to the study of India.2011, Christian Lee Novetzke, “The theographic and the historiographic in an Indian sacred life story”, in Time, History, and the Religious...
- A certain ball which a noble Duchess gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named year is historical.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
Synonyms of historical
Antonyms
Forms of historical
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more historical |
| superlative | most historical |
| alternative form | historicall |
| Noun | |
| plural | historicals |
Origin of historical
From Latin historicus (“historical”) + -al (forming adjectives denoting of or relating to). By surface analysis, history + -ical.
Words formed from historical
- ahistorical
- allohistorical
- anhistorical
- antihistorical
- art-historical
- biohistorical
- counterhistorical
- cryptohistorical
- culture-historical
- culturohistorical
- dictionary on historical principles
- ecohistorical
- ethnohistorical
- geohistorical
- grammatico-historical
- historical Christian
- historical-comparative
- historical cost
- historical-critical
- historical criticism
- historical-cultural
- historical determinism
- historical dictionary
- historical-economic
- historical faith
- historical fiction
- historical-geographical
- historical geology
- historical grammar
- historical-grammatical
- historical interpreter
- historicalist
- historicalization
- historicalize
- historical-lexicographical
- historical linguist
- historical linguistics
- historically
- historical materialism
- historical materialist
- historical method
- historical-minded
- historical-mindedness
- historicalness
- historical novel
- historical-onomatological
- historical-political
- historical present
- historical present tense
- historical relativism
- historical research
- historical shirt
- historical society
- historical-sociological
- historical sociology
- historical subject
- historical-typological
- hysterical historical
- macrohistorical
- media-historical
Phrases with historical
Questions about historical
- What does historical mean?
- Historical means of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.
- What is historical in Hindi?
- Historical in Hindi is ऐतिहासिक (aitihāsik). See Historical meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use historical in a sentence?
- an important historical personage
- What part of speech is historical?
- Historical can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce historical?
- Historical is pronounced /hɪˈstɒɹɪkəl/ (UK).
Words near historical in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: historical (page history and authors); historical (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ऐतिहासिक (Marathi) (page history and authors); historical (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); historical (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); historical (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); historical (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ঐতিহাসিক (Assamese) (page history and authors); ऐतिहासिक (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-historical.ogg.
Cite this entry: “historical.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/historical. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.