Meanings
- pluralplural onlyTechnical details, especially ones that are tedious or of little interest to nonspecialists; technicalities.
If you don’t care about the technicalia of Internet mail, the next two paragraphs can be safely skipped.
2001, Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, Revised edition, CA: O’Reilly, →ISBN, page 393 more examples
Copernicus himself made few observations but was steeped both in the technicalia of astronomical geometry and in the humanistic tradition.
1995, Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 210[…] the notes often contain extended, technical arguments. Other readers may also find the notes of considerable interest, but I would suggest that if the annotative technicalia prove tiresome, the argument in the body of the text may remain both intelligible and useful, even if the notes are not consulted.
2004, John D. Dunne, Foundations of Dharmakīrti's Philosophy, MA: Wisdom Publications, →ISBN, page 13Yet in explaining deficits, the Audit Commission (AC) (2006) sought refuge in a narrow range of technicalia about the processes of budget-setting, on the one hand, and bland homilies about the nature of Boards, on the other.
2007, Calum Paton, “The Politics of NHS Deficits and NHS Re-form”, in Alison Han, editor, Health policy and politics, Hampshire: Ashgate, →ISBN, page 18 - pluralplural onlyTechnical language; jargon.
Unusually for such technicalia, rebracketing is a good, solid English word, not Latin or Greek.
2015 August 13, Damion Searls, “Burgers and Copters, Shelves and Pants”, in The Paris Review, archived from the original on 05 Jul 20172 more examples
[…]though much of the Latin loan material consists of military or governmental technicalia, there exists, in addition, a considerable stratum which provides insight into the lexical equipment of the more popular levels of society.
1981, Michael McCormick, “Greek Hagiography and Popular Latin in Late Antiquity: The Case of *Biberaticum-βιβερατικόν”, in The American Journal of Philology, volume 102, number 2, →DOI, page 157The technicalia underlying the description – such as the floodlights, the 'fluorescent', the 'spectrem', the prism, the multi-dimensionality, the reference to arteriosclerosis ('arthurious clayroses') – contextualize it within modern techno-culture.
1997, Donald E. Theall, James Joyce's Techno-Poetics, University of Toronto Press, →DOI, page 107
Origin
By surface analysis, technical + -ia (“a collection of things”). Evidently modelled after other nouns descended from substantivized Latin -ālis adjectives in the neuter plural: marginalia, paraphernalia, generalia, regalia, militaria, etc.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
technicalia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/technicalia
“technicalia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/technicalia. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “technicalia,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/technicalia.
Source: technicalia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.