A. adj.
1. = ACADEMIC A 1. rare.
1666. J. Smith, Old Age, 256. With Devotion to admire that Academical Inscription ἀγνώστῳ θεῷ [to an unknown God].
2. = ACADEMIC A 2, for which it is now more commonly used.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1321/2. As the academicall poet sometime said at the gratious entering of hir maiestie into Cambridge.
1769. Lett. of Junius, vii. 30. An academical education has given you an unlimited command … of speech.
1853. Felton, Fam. Lett. (1865), iii. 22. He came punctually in his academical costume.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Organ., 83. Academical life within college walls is a more valuable moral and social discipline than a solitary lodging.
3. Of or belonging to an academy for the cultivation of belles lettres, arts, or sciences; of or pertaining to an academician.
1879. Athenæum, 17 May, 639. Academical in the sense that Couture’s art was academical, the other work of the venerable member of the Institute pleases us more.
B. sb. pl. Academical robes; the articles of dress usually worn by the students, graduates, or officials of a college or university.
1823. Lockhart, Reg. Dalton (1842), 130. Proctor. ‘Who are you? Are you gownsmen? Young man, how dare you be without your academicals?’
1861. T. Hughes, T. Brown at Oxf., I. xix. At first he caught up his cap and gown as though he were going out…. On second thoughts, however, he threw his academicals back on to the sofa.
