POETICAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does poetical mean? 

• POETICAL (adjective)
  The adjective POETICAL has 2 senses:

1. of or relating to poetry

2. characteristic of or befitting poetry

  Familiarity information: POETICAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POETICAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to poetry

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

poetic; poetical

Context example:

a poetic romance

Pertainym:

poetry (literature in metrical form)

Derivation:

poetry (literature in metrical form)

poetry (any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the evocation of feeling)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Characteristic of or befitting poetry

Synonyms:

poetic; poetical

Context example:

poetic diction

Similar:

rhetorical (given to rhetoric, emphasizing style at the expense of thought)

Derivation:

poetry (any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the evocation of feeling)

 Context examples 

Winthrop, however, or its environs—for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home—was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves, and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)