lyrical
Britishadjective
Explanation
Something that's lyrical is beautifully full of emotion. Don't be surprised if a lyrical passage in the book you're reading makes you cry a little bit. The word lyric, and its connection to the words of a song, provides one hint about the adjective lyrical, which can mean "appropriate for singing." When a movie, book, dance, or work of art gives you the same feeling as the most beautiful music, you can also describe those things as lyrical. The musical connection goes all the way back to the Greek root word, lyra, or lyre.
Vocabulary lists containing lyrical
The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 6
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Poetry
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lyrical saint Nick Cave was more caustic — notoriously so — when he shared how he felt about these boys of California’s endless summer.
From Salon • Apr. 4, 2026
Lyrical but not maudlin, the book navigates family disagreements, competing philosophies and different ways the human spirit can manifest in the human body.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025
Lyrical scraps would flash unbidden, like hallucinations, in the decades to follow.
From New York Times • Mar. 23, 2024
Lyrical, haunting, spare and totally ahead of its time.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 2021
Wordsworth’s friend, James Tobin, who saw the Lyrical Ballads while they were going through the press, told him that this poem would make him everlastingly ridiculous, and entreated him in vain to cancel it.
From Oxford Lectures on Poetry by Bradley, Andrew Cecil
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
