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re·la·tion·al | \ ri-ˈlā-shnəl 
, -shə-nᵊl \
, -shə-nᵊl \Definition of relational
1 : of or relating to kinship
2 : characterized or constituted by relations
3 : having the function chiefly of indicating a relation of syntax
has is notional in he has luck, relational in he has gone
4 : relating to, using, or being a method of organizing data in a database so that it is perceived by the user as a set of tables
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Examples of relational in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web Data is stored in JSON-like documents rather than the columns and rows of a relational database.
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Scott Gilbertson, Ars Technica, "In 2019, multiple open source companies changed course—is it the right move?," 16 Oct. 2019 Users discussed the merits of relational databases, the complexities of co-founder relationships, and the pros and cons of dropping out of college.
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Anna Wiener, The New Yorker, "The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News," 8 Aug. 2019 The phases below map to Mark Knapp’s relational development model.
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Pamela Pavliscak, Quartz, "Forget AI ethics—treat technology like a new relationship instead," 2 Aug. 2019 The ability to be genuine and relational precedes all other obligations of an actor — of a person, really.
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N'jameh Camara, Teen Vogue, "Names That Are Unfamiliar to You Aren't "Hard," They're "Unpracticed"," 12 July 2019 The Indiana Department of Education defines four categories of bullying: physical, verbal, social/relational, and in electronic or written communication.
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Holly V. Hays, Indianapolis Star, "Franklin school district didn't intervene amid bullying of girl with autism, lawsuit claims," 6 June 2019 Ocient, a company building a relational database and analytics software platform for petabyte- to exabyte-scale data sets, raised $10 million in Series A funding.
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Polina Marinova, Fortune, "Term Sheet -- Wednesday, June 6," 6 June 2018 And Sybase was troubled at the time and was a relational database company looking for the next chapter, so to speak.
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Recode Staff, Recode, "Full transcript: BlackBerry CEO John Chen on Recode Decode," 19 Apr. 2018 Remember the wisdom in finding relational dynamics that have both the best of friendship and romance.
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Colin Bedell, Cosmopolitan, "Your Horoscope for the Week of March 5," 4 Mar. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'relational.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for relational
The first known use of relational was in 1662
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