historical
/hɪˈstɔɹɪkəl/adjective, noun
historical is spelled H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is hystorical: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 244 of all searches for the word. Historical is an adjective meaning “Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and…”.
How many letters and syllables are in historical?
| Letters | 10: H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 49 times per million words; the 2,072nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, hystorical, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell historical?
Historical is spelled H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 244 of the searches for historical in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is historical?
Historical appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce historical?
- UK /hɪˈstɒɹɪkəl/
- US /hɪˈstɔɹɪkəl/
- /hɪˈstɑɹɪkəl/
Historical has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-historical.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with historical
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with historical?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as historical from its last stressed vowel (/ɔɹɪkəl/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of historical
- more historical comparative
- most historical superlative
- historicall
- historicals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does historical mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.
July 4, 1776, is a historic date. A great deal of historical research has been done on the events leading up to that day.
- 2
About history; depicting persons or events from history.
- 3
Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.
- 4
Set in the past.
- 5
Former, erstwhile; (religious, obsolete) lapsed, nominal.
But concerning some persons of your neighbourhood... their Confession [of Faith] is rather an opinion than a true and sincere earnestness, for all of them are not that which they boast and glory to be; there may be many honest hearts among
- 6
One of various tenses or moods used to tell about past events, historic (tense).
- 7
obsoleteSynonym of hereditary or evolutionary.
- 8
Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history.
The Royal Historical Society
noun
- 1
A historical romance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate historical?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of historical: hist..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Historical in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense pertaining to history:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | historique |
| German | geschichtlich, historisch |
| Portuguese | histórico |
| Spanish | histórico |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does historical come from?
From Latin historicus (“historical”) + -al (forming adjectives denoting of or relating to). By surface analysis, history + -ical.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What to look up after historical
- historic or historical? the difference
- rhetorical rhymes with historical
- allegorical rhymes with historical
- historic the entry before
- historically the entry after
- English words starting with H the most written first
- The most misspelled English words
- Count the syllables of any word
- Check the spelling of a text