canonical
adjective /kəˈnɒnɪkl/
/kəˈnɑːnɪkl/
(also canonic)
- included in a list of holy books that are accepted as what they are claimed to be
- the canonical Gospels of the New Testament
- according to the law of the Christian Church
- canonical rules
- accepted as belonging to the group of writers or works of literature that must be highly respected
- canonical writers like Jane Austen
- accepted as being true, correct and established
- the canonical methods of science as taught in the classroom
- (specialist) in the simplest accepted form in mathematics
- the standard canonical form for a matrix
Word Originlate Middle English: from medieval Latin canonicalis, from Latin canonicus ‘canonical’, from Greek kanonikos, from kanon ‘rule’.