# classical
## English

* A user suggests that this English entry be moved, merged or split.
* Please see the discussion on Requests for moves, mergers and splits or the talk page for more information and remove this template after the request has been fulfilled.

### Etymology

See classic § Etymology for history. By surface analysis, class +‎ -ical = classic +‎ -al

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈklæsɪkl̩/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: clas‧si‧cal

### Adjective

classical (comparative more classical, superlative most classical)
* Of or relating to the first class or rank, especially in literature or art.
** 1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures Explain'd and Exemplify'd in Several Dissertations, page 15:... Mr. Greaves, who may be juſtly reckoned a Claſſical Author on this Subject.
* Of or pertaining to established principles in a discipline.
** 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get; what you get is classical alpha-taxonomy which is, very largely and for sound reasons, in disrepute today.
* (music) Describing Western music and musicians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
* (informal, music) Describing art music (rather than pop, jazz, blues, etc), especially when played using instruments of the orchestra.
* Of or pertaining to the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially to Greek or Roman authors of the highest rank, or of the period when their best literature was produced; of or pertaining to places inhabited by the ancient Greeks and Romans, or rendered famous by their deeds.
** 1853, Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Atterbury, Francis" in Encyclopædia Britannica (8th ed.). Dated through The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, page 344
    He [Atterbury] directed the classical studies of the undergraduates of his college.
* Knowledgeable or skilled in the classics; versed in the classics.
    a classical scholar
** 2022 July 27, Brian Seibert, “Dormeshia Coasts On Her Tap Mystery In 'Rhythm Is Life'”, in New York Times‎:But she’s not just classy; she’s classical: so deeply versed in tap tradition and technique that she has the whole of it at her command and never has to worry.
* Conforming to the best authority in literature and art; chaste; pure; refined
    classical dance.
** 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume 1, page 151.
    Classical, provincial, and national synods.
* (physics) Pertaining to models of physical laws that do not take quantum or relativistic effects into account; Newtonian or Maxwellian.
    Antonyms: quantum, relativistic

#### Usage notes

Various usage advisers give various prescriptions for differentiating classic from classical by word sense distinctions and by collocational idiomaticness (that is, according to the way in which certain collocations tend to use one suffix more than the other idiomatically). For example (as pointed out by various authorities, including Bryan Garner in Garner's Modern English Usage, fourth edition), classical tends to be preferred in the sense of "the classics" (in ancient literature, modern literature, or music), though classic also sometimes serves in this sense.

#### Synonyms

* classic (see Usage notes regarding differentiation.)

#### Derived terms

* anteclassical
* anticlassical
* Classical antiquity
* classical antiquity
* Classical Arabic
* Classical Armenian
* Classical Chinese
* classical cipher
* classical computer
* classical conditioning
* classical dressage
* Classical English
* classical era
* Classical Greece
* Classical Greek
* classical guitar
* classical guitarist
* classical hadrodynamics
* Classical Hebrew
* classical history
* classical inheritance
* classicalism
* classicalist
* classicality
* classicalization
* classicalize
* Classical Japanese
* classical language
* Classical Latin
* classical liberal
* classical liberalism
* classical logic
* classically
* classical mechanics
* classical Meitei
* classical music
* Classical Nahuatl
* classicalness
* classicalon
* classical physics
* classical planet
* Classical Sanskrit
* classical studies
* Classical Studies
* Classical Syriac
* classical thermodynamics
* Classical Tupi
* classical unemployment
* classical unity
* epiclassical
* extraclassical
* hyperclassical
* jazzical
* neoclassical
* nonclassical
* paleoclassical
* postclassical
* preclassical
* pseudoclassical
* quasiclassical
* semiclassical
* superclassical
* unclassical

#### Translations
### Noun

classical (countable and uncountable, plural classicals)
* (countable) One that is classical in some way; for example, a classical economist.
** 2002, James E Hartley, James E. Hartley, The Representative Agent in Macroeconomics, Routledge, →ISBN, page 120:Similarly, the new classicals never claimed to be Austrians, nor did they ever make the attempt to meet Austrian objections. Therefore, we cannot fault them for not using this methodology. Nevertheless, new classicals constantly preach […]
* Short for classical music.
* (chess) Short for classical chess.
** 2015 November 3, solskytz, “IM Greg Shahade: "Slow Chess should die a fast death"”, in Chess.com‎:When I want to have fun I play blitz. When I want to go deeper and work on improving my game, I play classical and I try to do it in tournament settings.
** 2022 September 23, Brian Pempus, “Hans Niemann Eliminated, Magnus Carlsen A -350 Betting Favorite To Win Online Chess Event”, in Forbes‎:In early September, Niemann scored an extraordinary win against Carlsen during an in-person tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. Carlsen, the world’s highest-rated player since 2011, lost with the white pieces in the classical time format, a rare occurrence for the chess juggernaut.

### Further reading

* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “classical”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
* “classical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* classical, classic at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.