classical
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of Greek and Roman antiquity.
classical literature;
classical languages.
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conforming to ancient Greek and Roman models in literature or art, or to later systems modeled upon them.
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marked by classicism.
classical simplicity.
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Music.
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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.
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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.
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Architecture.
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noting or pertaining to the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the religious and public architecture, characterized by the employment of orders.
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noting or pertaining to any of several styles of architecture closely imitating the architecture of ancient Greece or Rome; neoclassic.
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noting or pertaining to architectural details or motifs adapted from ancient Greek or Roman models.
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(of an architectural design) simple, reposeful, well-proportioned, or symmetrical in a manner suggesting the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome.
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(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.
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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 (romantic ).
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pertaining to or versed in the ancient classics.
a classical scholar.
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relating to or teaching academic branches of knowledge, as the humanities, general sciences, etc., as distinguished from technical subjects.
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(of a given field of knowledge) accepted as standard and authoritative, as distinguished from novel or experimental.
classical physics.
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Ecclesiastical. pertaining to a classis.
noun
adjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of the ancient Greeks and Romans or their civilization, esp in the period of their ascendancy
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designating, following, or influenced by the art or culture of ancient Greece or Rome
classical architecture
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music
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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
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denoting or relating to a style in any of the arts characterized by emotional restraint and conservatism See classicism
a classical style of painting
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well versed in the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome
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(of an education) based on the humanities and the study of Latin and Greek
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physics
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not involving the quantum theory or the theory of relativity
classical mechanics
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obeying the laws of Newtonian mechanics or 19th-century physics
a classical gas
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(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
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.
Khmer classical dance, performed to traditional music, is renowned for its graceful hand gestures and stunning costumes, and has a 1,000-year history.
From Barron's
She panicked one night when classical music was played on the radio – similar to music played on Rwandan radio the night the genocide began.
From BBC
He set classical stories in visually believable architectural settings with costumes and props based on archaeological discoveries.
While a classical computer is like reading each book one by one, quantum creates the possibility to read every book at once, making the computers suitable for “problems that involve millions of possibilities and interactions.”
From Barron's
Ms. Machado has built her career on a classical liberal vision for the country, and she’s popular.
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.
