physical
/ˈfɪzɪk(ə)l
/adjective
1Relating to the body as opposed to the mind: a range of physical and mental challenges...
- Mental and physical exhaustion retards the growth of body and mind, and it often causes a psychosomatic illness.
- When cycling enthusiast Katie Bamber booked a charity trip to Vietnam she was bracing herself for a tough mental and physical challenge.
- The healing takes places on an emotional level, a mental level, and on a body level, a physical level.
Synonyms
bodily, corporeal, corporal, fleshly, in the flesh
rare somatic
1.1Involving bodily contact or activity: less physical sports such as bowls a physical relationship...
- We berate those who cross the line and leave the immature and underdeveloped open to the physical abuse of contact and collision sports.
- Yes, there is the element of consent and the obvious foreknowledge that physical contact sports carry an inherent risk of injury.
- These guys are playing a physical contact game, they're all steamed up.
Synonyms
manual, labouring, blue-collar
earthly, worldly, terrestrial, earthbound, non-spiritual, unspiritual, material;
carnal, fleshly, sensual;
mortal, human, temporal;
brutish, bestial, animal, base, sordid;
secular, lay, mundane
2Relating to things perceived through the senses as opposed to the mind; tangible or concrete: the physical world...
- These are tangible, physical assets and totally unlike the stock of a typical NYSE company.
- Common sense says that the physical environment has an impact on productivity.
- Most businesses deal with the physical assets and the environment within, but have never looked at the people.
Synonyms
material, substantial, solid, concrete, tangible, palpable, visible, real, actual
3Relating to physics or the operation of natural forces generally: physical laws...
- Certainly, before Newton, the very idea of physical law was at best a blur.
- Feynman's work is filled with the sort of raw physical insight that physicists love and admire.
- Today we understand most of these things in terms of physical forces acting under impersonal laws.
noun
1 (also physical examination) A medical examination to determine a person’s bodily fitness: at fifty-something, each year’s physical was a kind of lottery...
- Planning to treat yourself to a complete physical for the New Year?
- She loved going to the doctor's office and insisted on having a complete physical at every visit.
- A healthy child from an area of high endemicity receives an annual physical.
2 (physicals) Stock Market Stocks held in actual commodities for immediate exchange, for example as opposed to futures: the exchange of futures for physicals...
- In addition to the over-the-counter trading in physicals, there has been a huge increase in exchange-traded financial contracts.
- It gives great advice on how one can profit from silver via physicals, futures and stocks.
Phrases
get physical
Derivatives
physicalness
- ‘I've got to learn the speed of the game and have patience with that, also the physicalness of it,’ he said through an interpreter after Tuesday's practice.
- We weren't used to the physicalness - pushing, shoving, holding - and them not calling anything.
- The other enthralling thing about sport is the physicalness of it.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'relating to medicine'): from medieval Latin physicalis, from Latin physica 'things relating to nature' (see physic). Sense 2 dates from the late 16th century and sense 1 from the late 18th century.