Meanings
comparative more salonical · superlative most salonical
- obsoleteIntellectually pretentious.
If the book was not clever and amusing, we should not refer to these matters, nor to such epithets as “swanking ” and “salonical.”
1898, James Silk Buckingham, John Sterling, Frederick Denison Maurice, The Athenaeum, page 8172 more examples
...in between these ghastly sonatas and things the Orders and Decorations could stand about like animated waxworks and discuss the Housing of the People Act and your bromidical hunting-stuff in the usual salonical way, but of course anybody who was too alientated could creep off into Arcadia, where my dear the commisariat was sausages, vulgar my dear but quite hot, with mash and everything,...
1929, Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, Topsy, M.P., page 119Beside all that, I know your salonical divinity well enough. A woman everlastingly sole-sitting, not on the shore of old romance, but on the brink of hysterical mania.
1904, Thomas Pinkerton, Sun beetles: a comedy in nickname land, page 170
Origin
From salon + -ical, from the use of salon to refer to an intellectual and social gathering.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
salonical. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/salonical
“salonical.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/salonical. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “salonical,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/salonical.
Source: salonical on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.