procedural

comparative more procedural · superlative most procedural

1. Related to procedure.

   The judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds: it wasn't the facts or the law, but just that they hadn't filed the correct forms.

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   An externment of a person is a harsh punishment on him and calls for procedural safeguards against the abuse of power by the authorities.

   1983, D. C. Pandey, Habitual Offenders and the Law, page 31

2. computingGenerated by means of a procedure, rather than being designed.

   procedural terrain

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   a procedural texture

plural procedurals

1. broadcastingA type of literature, film, or television program involving a sequence of technical detail.

   It is only fitting that the investigation of place-based police procedurals begins in America, where the police procedural was invented and turned into a literary art form.

   2000, Gary Hausladen, Places for Dead Bodies, page 35

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   David Fincher’s horribly addictive samurai procedural, adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker from the graphic novel by Alexis Nolent, stars Michael Fassbender as the un-named titular hitman[…]

   2023 September 3, Peter Bradshaw, “The Killer review – terrific David Fincher thriller about a philosophising hitman”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. abbreviationellipsisspecificallyEllipsis of police procedural.

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   The Wire, however, did not kill the procedural. The procedural simply borrowed The Wire’s aesthetic. The detectives may trudge sombrely from one improbable homicide scene to another, week in, week out, as the blue lights circle bleakly, but we, the viewers, sink gleefully into our sofas ready to drink it in like cocoa.

   2015 June 16, David Stubbs, “Watching the detectives: why the police procedural is more popular than ever”, in The Guardian, →ISSN