Definition of CANONICAL (original) (raw)

: of, relating to, or forming a canon

: conforming to a general rule or acceptable procedure : orthodox

His proposals were generally accepted as canonical.

: of or relating to a clergyman who is a canon

: reduced to the canonical form

Examples of canonical in a Sentence

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Where is the canonical image of American scientific progress, of man going to space? —Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2024 Despite producing at least two canonical entries to hip-hop’s Golden Age – Black Moon’s Enta da Stage and Smif-n-Wessun’s Dah Shinin’ — Da Beatminerz have often felt, unfairly, like a footnote to that celebrated era. —Spin Team, SPIN, 28 Nov. 2024 But this is a company for whom beauty in design is also canonical, and more than ever the battle here is to reconcile aesthetics with aerodynamics. —Jason Barlow, WIRED, 17 Oct. 2024 Likewise, though the comparison would probably embarrass him, David Cromer did something with Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in 2009 that manages, to this day, to keep haunting a play that’s as canonical as Romeo and Juliet, as curricular as To Kill a Mockingbird. —Sara Holdren, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for canonical