categorical

English

Etymology

From Late Latin catēgoricus +‎ -al. By surface analysis, category +‎ -ical.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌkætəˈɡɔɹɪk(ə)l/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

categorical (comparative more categorical, superlative most categorical)

1. Absolute; having no exception.
   • 1856, Robert Gordon Latham, Logic in the Application to Language‎^[1]:

     We now see that they [propositions] are either conditional or unconditional, or, as the logicians say, hypothetical (conditional) or categorical (unconditional).

   • 1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams: Avon Books, page 74:

     Daytime interests are clearly not such far-reaching psychical sources of dreams as might have been expected from the categorical assertions that everyone continues to carry on his daily business in his dreams.

2. Of, pertaining to, or using a category or categories.

Synonyms

• (absolute; having no exception): absolute, categoric, unconditional, categorial

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “absolute; having no exception”): exceptional, conditional, hypothetical, relative

Derived terms

• acategorical
• bicategorical
• categorical dual
• categorical imperative
• categorically
• categoricalness
• categorical product
• categorical variable
• intercategorical
• intracategorical
• multicategorical
• noncategorical
• subcategorical
• transcategorical
• uncategorical

 

Related terms

• categoricity

Translations

absolute; having no exception

• Bulgarian: окончателен (bg) (okončatelen), безусловен (bg) (bezusloven)
• Catalan: categòric
• Czech: kategorický (cs)
• Danish: kategorisk
• French: catégorique (fr) m or f
• German: kategorisch (de)
• Hungarian: kategorikus (hu)
• Italian: categoriale
• Japanese: 無条件の (ja) (mujōken no), 例外無き (reigainaki)
• Polish: kategoryczny (pl)
• Portuguese: categórico (pt), taxativo (pt)
• Romanian: categoric (ro)
• Russian: категори́ческий (ru) (kategoríčeskij)
• Spanish: tajante (es), categórico (es)
• Swedish: kategorisk (sv)
• Ukrainian: категори́чний (katehorýčnyj)

of, pertaining to, or using categories

• Bulgarian: категоричен (bg) (kategoričen)
• French: catégoriel (fr) m, catégorielle (fr) f
• German: kategorisch (de)
• Italian: categoriale
• Japanese: 分類上の (bunruijō no)
• Portuguese: categórico (pt)
• Romanian: categorial (ro)
• Tagalog: mulisipin

Noun

categorical (plural categoricals)

1. (logic) A categorical proposition.