historical

comparative more historical · superlative most historical · alternative historicall

1. Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.

   an important historical personage

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   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.

   For in the contexte historicalle [Latin: In historico... contextu], the rewle off lyvenge and forme of vertues moralle and the incentiue of manhode ȝiffe grete resplendence thro the diligence of croniclers.

   a. 1475, chapter 5, in Higden's Polychronicon, volume I

   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. The list also includes Yehudi Menuhin, Helena Rubinstein, the Rothschilds and even Rosenstein himself.

   2004 October 24, Bill Gladstone, “The oldest family in the world”, in Jewish Telegraphic Agency

   1. artAbout history; depicting persons or events from history.

      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

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      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

2. 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

   1. artSet in the past.
   2. uncommonFormer, erstwhile; (religious, obsolete) lapsed, nominal.

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      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 ...

      1886, Jacob Boehme translated by John Ellistone in Works, volume 1, epistle 2, §49, page 39

      Synonyms: past

   3. grammarOne 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

   4. obsoletebiologySynonym of hereditary or evolutionary.

      Synonyms: hereditary or evolutionary

3. Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.

   The Royal Historical Society

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   The State Historical Society of Wisconsin

   1. 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

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      ...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

      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 Imagery in South Asia, page 119

   2. uncommonSynonym of historic: important or likely to be important to history and historians.

      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

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      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.

      1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

      Synonyms: historic

4. Forming compound adjectives with the meaning "historical/~" or "historically"

   historical-political

plural historicals · alternative historicall

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.

   1999, Anne K. Kaler, Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek, Romantic Conventions, page 63