historical
adjective
Did you know?
historic or historical?
Do you experience a slight pause before using either of these words as you try to remember which one is correct and whether it should be preceded by an or a? If so, you’re not alone, for many people find this pair particularly tricky. Historic and historical are both occasionally found preceded by an, since the initial h in each word was formerly left unpronounced. Now this h is heard, and a is far more common than an (by a ratio of about 4 to 1 in American English).
Historic and historical have been used interchangeably by many writers, even in recent years. If you would like to avoid being corrected, however, use historical for matters relating to history (the historical society), and historic to refer to things having great and lasting importance (a historic occasion).
Examples of historical in a Sentence
Mark Carey, New York Times, 23 Oct. 2025
This history does, however, raise the question of what Shakespeare’s play might have to tell us about our current historical moment.
—JSTOR Daily, 23 Oct. 2025
Passmore explains the mix of personal reflection and historical storytelling in the book which follows the main character, a version of himself, time-traveling through a century of the Black radical tradition.
—Fiction Non Fiction, Literary Hub, 23 Oct. 2025
Far from the constructive ambiguity of the 1992 Consensus, Lai breathlessly argued that Taiwan and China are distinct, autonomous nations, drawing on historical, legal, and identity-based arguments linking the island’s heritage to Austronesian culture, rather than Chinese.
—Charlie Campbell, Time, 23 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for historical
Cite this Entry
“Historical.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/historical. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.
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historical
adjective
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