canonical

canon +‎ -ical or canonic +‎ -al.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəˈnɒn.ɪ.kəl/, [kəˈnɒn.ɪ.kl̩]

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /kəˈnɑ.nɪ.kəl/, [kəˈnɑ.nɪ.kl̩]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /kəˈnɔn.ɪ.kəl/, [kəˈnɔn.ɪ.kl̩]

canonical (comparative more canonical, superlative most canonical)

1. Present in a canon, religious or otherwise.

   The Gospel of Luke is a canonical New Testament book.

   • 1732, George Reynolds, A diſſertation: or, Inquiry Concerning the Canonical Autority of the Goſpel according to Mathew; […] ‎, 2nd edition, page 4:

     In a word, they were made uſe of by the immediate ſucceſſors of the Apoſtles, and many of them read in the Public Aſſemblies of Chriſtians, as Canonical Scripture, without the leaſt mark of Diſtinction, in point of Autority […]

2. According to recognised or orthodox rules.

   The men played golf in the most canonical way, with no local rules.

   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, pages 158–159:

     While bills are being brought into the House of Commons to regulate every thing, from the sweeps crying "sweep," to "emancipation, vote by ballot, and free trade," is there no county member whose "time and talents" are devoted to "domestic policy," who will bring in a bill "for the better regulation of the marriage ceremony," and put the canonical hours later in the day?

3. Stated or used in the most basic and straightforwardly applicable manner.

   the reduction of a linear substitution to its canonical form

4. Prototypical.
5. (religion) In conformity with canon law.
6. (music) In the form of a canon.
7. (religion) Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical chapter
8. (mathematics, computing) In canonical form.
9. (mathematics) Distinguished among entities of its kind, so that it can be picked out in a way that does not depend on any arbitrary choices.
   • 2011 February 7, Samson Abramsky with Nikos Tzevelekos, “Introduction to Categories and Categorical Logic”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎, page 19:

     It turns out that ordered pairs can be defined in set theory, e.g. as
     
             ${\displaystyle (x,y):=\{\{x,y\},y\}}$.
     
     Note that in no sense is such a definition canonical.

10. (fandom slang) Part of canon (“the main continuity of a fictional universe”).

• (mathematics): natural

• (antonym(s) of “scripture”): apocryphal

canonical (plural canonicals)

1. (plural only) The formal robes of a priest.
   • 1857, Various, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857‎:

     He, good man, could make but little of his solitary friend, and must many a time have been startled out of his canonicals by the strange, alien speeches which he heard.

   • 1891, Emily Sarah Holt, The White Lady of Hazelwood‎:

     Mr Altham rose, as in duty bound, in honour to a priest, and a priest who, as he dimly discerned by his canonicals, was not altogether a common one.

   • 1915, H. G. Wells, The Research Magnificent‎:

     When I was a boy I was a passionate atheist, I defied God, and so far as God is the mere sanction of social traditions and pressures, a mere dressing up of the crowd's will in canonicals, I do still deny him and repudiate him.

2. (Internet) A URL presented in canonical form.
   • 2015, Simon Kloostra, Joomla! 3 SEO and Performance, page 63:

     Google advises canonicals as one of the preferred methods of treating duplicate content in your CMS.