classical

American  

[klas-i-kuhl] / ˈklæs ɪ kəl /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Greek and Roman antiquity.

   classical literature;

   classical languages.

2. conforming to ancient Greek and Roman models in literature or art, or to later systems modeled upon them.

3. marked by classicism.

   classical simplicity.

4. Music.

   1. of, relating to, or constituting the formally and artistically more sophisticated and enduring types of music, as distinguished from popular and folk music and jazz. Classical music includes symphonies, operas, sonatas, song cycles, and lieder.

   2. of, pertaining to, characterized by, or adhering to the well-ordered, chiefly homophonic musical style of the latter half of the 18th and the early 19th centuries.

      Haydn and Mozart are classical composers.

5. Architecture.

   1. noting or pertaining to the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the religious and public architecture, characterized by the employment of orders.

   2. noting or pertaining to any of several styles of architecture closely imitating the architecture of ancient Greece or Rome; neoclassic.

   3. noting or pertaining to architectural details or motifs adapted from ancient Greek or Roman models.

   4. (of an architectural design) simple, reposeful, well-proportioned, or symmetrical in a manner suggesting the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome.

6. (often initial capital letter) pertaining to or designating the style of fine arts, especially painting and sculpture, developed in Greece during the 5th and 4th centuries b.c., chiefly characterized by balanced composition, the separation of figures from an architectural background, and the naturalistic rendering of anatomical details, spatial movement, and distribution of weight in a figure.

7. of or relating to a style of literature and art characterized by conformity to established treatments, taste, or critical standards, and by attention to form with the general effect of regularity, simplicity, balance, proportion, and controlled emotion (contrasted with romantic).

8. pertaining to or versed in the ancient classics.

   a classical scholar.

9. relating to or teaching academic branches of knowledge, as the humanities, general sciences, etc., as distinguished from technical subjects.

10. (of a given field of knowledge) accepted as standard and authoritative, as distinguished from novel or experimental.

    classical physics.

11. classic.

12. Ecclesiastical. pertaining to a classis.

---

noun

1. classical music.

   a jazz pianist who studied classical for years.

classical British  

/ ˈklæsɪkəl /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the ancient Greeks and Romans or their civilization, esp in the period of their ascendancy

2. designating, following, or influenced by the art or culture of ancient Greece or Rome

   classical architecture

3. music

   1. of, relating to, or denoting any music or its period of composition marked by stability of form, intellectualism, and restraint Compare romantic

   2. accepted as a standard

      the classical suite

   3. denoting serious art music in general Compare pop 1

4. music of or relating to a style of music composed, esp at Vienna, during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This period is marked by the establishment, esp by Haydn and Mozart, of sonata form

5. denoting or relating to a style in any of the arts characterized by emotional restraint and conservatism See classicism

   a classical style of painting

6. well versed in the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome

7. (of an education) based on the humanities and the study of Latin and Greek

8. physics

   1. not involving the quantum theory or the theory of relativity

      classical mechanics

   2. obeying the laws of Newtonian mechanics or 19th-century physics

      a classical gas

9. another word for classic classic

10. (of a logical or mathematical system) according with the law of excluded middle, so that every statement is known to be either true or false even if it is not known which

---

Other Word Forms

• anticlassical adjective
• anticlassically adverb
• anticlassicalness noun
• classicality noun
• classically adverb
• classicalness noun
• hyperclassical adjective
• hyperclassicality noun
• nonclassicality noun
• preclassical adjective
• preclassically adverb
• proclassical adjective
• quasi-classically adverb

Etymology

Origin of classical

First recorded in 1580–90; classic + -al ¹

Explanation

Has the building got columns in front of it? Check. Has the music got lots of strings and horns? Check. Chances are both are classical — representative of a past culture. Often classical describes anything from ancient Greek or Roman culture, because, boy, those guys were good. Be careful when using classical and classic; they're not exactly the same. While something classical is usually a classic, it doesn't necessarily work the other way around. A classic is something exceptional that we tend to judge in a different time frame. A classic rock album? Definitely not made by the ancient Greeks or Romans. So far as we know.

Example Sentences

Less a recondite modernist experiment than a grandly mysterious yet accessible achievement, the composition marked a profound shift in 20th-century classical music.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026

Keynes set out to turn economics theory on its head, Smith to explore the classical ideas that the modernists were tossing aside.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 21, 2026

Orchestra for a prom that includes music by the Charleston-born composer Edmund Thornton Jenkins, one of the first people to introduce elements of jazz and spirituals into the classical repertoire.

From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026

The new method avoids these issues by using the quantum computer only once during the workflow, rather than repeatedly exchanging data between quantum and classical systems.

From Science Daily • Apr. 17, 2026

The Osage have long been linked to the world of classical dance, having produced two of the greatest ballerinas, the sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

Related Words

• classic
• elegant
• understated