historical
Often confused with historic
- 1Relating to or concerned with the past in general, rather than the present.
The region's historical background shaped its modern borders.
She enjoys reading about the historical context of old paintings.
UsageNot the same as historic, which means important in history: historical records, but a historic win.
Oppositecontemporary, modern
- 2Relating to or based on recorded history, as distinct from legend, myth, or fiction.
Scholars continue to debate whether the city's founding hero was a historical person.
Archaeological finds gave the flood narrative a historical foundation.
UsageOften a historical figure or person, as against a legend. For something important in history, the usual word is historic.
Oppositelegendary, mythical, fictional, fictitious
Note
The core sense, the one that separates what happened from what was only told. It came in from Latin historicus, and the English Polychronicon of Higden, from before 1475, already renders in historico contextu as "contexte historicalle." A historical date is simply on the record, while a historic one changed things, and the works of Gibbon and Macaulay are historical works that have become historic in their own right.
- 3Concerned with history, or depicting people and events from the past, especially of a story, film, or play set in an earlier period.
The author specializes in historical fiction set during the Tudor era.
Their historical documentary reconstructed the lives of medieval farmers.
UsageCommon before novel, fiction, drama and film: a historical novel is a story set in the past.
Note
In literature and the arts, the label promises a real past, often with real people and events, and that promise invites quarrels. Writing in Grantland in 2015, Mark Harris defended Selma by arguing that historical fiction sometimes departs from fact to reach for thematic or intuitive truths. The word can also class an entire genre by its subject, as when hagiography, the lives and miracles of saints, is called a historical genre.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Mark Harris wrote a defence of Selma in Grantland in 2015. en.wiktionary.org
- Harris makes this argument. grantland.com
- Hagiography concerns saints' lives and miracles attributed to them. en.wikipedia.org
- Hagiography is described as a historical genre. myweb.ttu.edu
- 4Important, or likely to be important, to history and to historians; momentous.
The signing of the treaty was a historical moment celebrated across the country.
Voters knew they were taking part in a historical election.
UsageHistoric is the more usual word for this meaning: a historic moment, a historic election.
Similarhistoric
Oppositeinsignificant, unimportant, trivial
Note
Here historical moves onto historic's ground, meaning momentous and sure to be remembered. Thackeray uses it this way in Vanity Fair, calling a Brussels ball historical. Mohamed ElBaradei, interviewed in Der Spiegel in 2010, speaks of "a historical moment for Egypt."
- 5Relating to history as an academic discipline and its methods of study.
The journal publishes historical scholarship on the medieval economy.
His historical training emphasized careful reading of primary sources.
Note
The discipline's own adjective, and the one that names its institutions: the Royal Historical Society, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. In such titles it is capitalized and fixed. Historic would be wrong there, because these bodies study history rather than claim importance for themselves. Outside proper names, the same sense covers historical training, historical method and historical scholarship.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Royal Historical Society is the institution's name, with Historical capitalized. royalhistsoc.org
- State Historical Society of Wisconsin is the institution's official name, with Historical capitalized. en.wikipedia.org
- The Royal Historical Society's activities concern the study of history. royalhistsoc.org
- The State Historical Society of Wisconsin's activities concern the study and dissemination of history. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 6Former or erstwhile; describing a status or role once held but no longer current.
Saint Petersburg is Russia's historical capital, though the government has sat in Moscow since 1918.
The port's historical role as a trading hub ended with the new railways.
Similarformer, erstwhile, onetime
Note
Two uses meet here. The living one is uncommon: historical meaning "former," as in a city's historical role. The other, now obsolete, is religious. A historical believer held the faith in name only. John Ellistone's translation of Jacob Boehme describes such people, whose confession is "rather an opinion than a true and sincere earnestness." In everyday writing, former or erstwhile is the clearer choice.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The obsolete religious sense of historical meant nominal or lapsed in faith. en.wiktionary.org
- John Ellistone translated the Boehme passage being discussed. en.wiktionary.org
- The quotation accurately describes the confession of people Boehme calls historical and titular. jacobboehmeonline.com
- 7Of a verb tense or mood, used to narrate events that took place in the past.
In the historical present, a narrator recounts past actions using present-tense verbs.
Latin grammar describes a historical infinitive used in vivid narration.
Similarhistoric
Note
A grammarian's term, met most often in the historical present, where past events are narrated in present-tense verbs. Historic and historical are interchangeable here, and historic present names the same device. In Latin it can be followed by either primary or historic sequence of tenses. Gerd Haverling, writing in 2010, notes that the historical present is often treated as a principal tense, but with exceptions, and that both constructions can appear in a single passage.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The historical present narrates past events using present-tense verbs. gutenberg.org
- Historic present and historical present name the same device. en.wikipedia.org
- Gerd Haverling published the relevant discussion in 2010. uu.se
- Haverling says the historical present is often treated as principal, with exceptions and both constructions sometimes occurring together. en.wiktionary.org
- 8Hereditary or evolutionary; transmitted by descent or arising through gradual development across generations.
Note
A naturalist's usage that has dropped out of biology. When an older text calls a feature historical, it means the feature has a past in the lineage: it was handed down by descent or built up by evolution. Read it as hereditary or evolutionary, which is what modern writers say instead. Used this way today, historical would be taken in its ordinary sense and misunderstood.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Historical has an obsolete biological sense meaning hereditary or evolutionary. en.wiktionary.org
- 9A romance novel whose love story unfolds in a recognizable past era.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
This comes from the Latin word historicus ("historical") combined with the suffix "-al." By surface analysis, it can also be seen as "history" plus "-ical."
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Historical comes from Latin historicus, meaning “historical,” combined with the suffix -al. en.wiktionary.org
- Historical can be analyzed on the surface as history plus -ical. en.wiktionary.org