philosophical
adjective
Simple meaning
Related to a belief accepted as authoritative by some group or school.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fihluhsahfihkuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
fɪləˈsɑfɪkəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to philosophy or philosophers
Rational; analytic or critically minded; thoughtful.
Detached, calm, stoic.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to philosophy or philosophers
Used this way, philosophical is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use philosophical
- “Philosophical writing.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A specialist in philosophy.
A belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.
In a philosophic manner.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A doctrine accepted by adherents to a philosophy.
A doctrine accepted by adherents to a philosophy.
A belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- ethicaladjective
- metaphysicsnoun
- philosophernoun
- logicnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: of or relating to philosophy or philosophers
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.