a. Also 5 comicalle, 6–7 -all, 6 commical, -ycal. [f. as prec. + -AL.]
† 1. = COMIC 1. Obs.
[1432–50. trans. Higden, V. 321. (cf. COMIC 1 quot. 1387) Noble songes comicalle.]
1557. Grimald, Muses, in Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 100. Delitefull talke loues Comicall Thaley.
1577. Northbrooke, Dicing (1843), 84. One Plautus, a comicall poet.
1664. Duchess of Newcastle, Soc. Lett., clxii. The third was our countryman Shakespear, for his comical and tragical humour.
1725. Gay, What d’ye call it (ed. 4), Pref. As to the plot, they deny it to be tragical, because its catastrophe is a wedding, which hath ever been accounted comical.
† 2. Of style, subject, etc.: Befitting comedy; trivial, mean, low; the opposite of tragical, elevated or dignified. Obs.
1586. A. Day, Eng. Secretarie, I. (1625), 10. Stile of Epistles … Humile, the lowest, comicall, and most simple of all others, the matter whereof is the meanest subject of any argument that may be … and is fittest appropriate to our familiar Letters.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. i. I. i. (1676), 255/1. That it is too light for a Divine, too Comical a subject to speak of Love-Symptoms.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Surv. Leviath. (1676), 18. This Comical mention of the power and goodness of God … in a place so improper and unnatural for those reflexions.
1687. Settle, Refl. Dryden, 29. Surely the Laureat … has the lest and most Comical Notions of Kings that e’re I met with.
† b. Of persons: ? Low, mean, base, ignoble; or ? clownish. Obs.
1670. Penn, Lib. Conscience, Pref. When they had sacrificed their divine Socrates to the sottish fury of their lewd and commical multitude, they … regreeted their hasty murder.
† 3. Like the conclusion of a comedy; happy or fortunate. (Opposed to tragical.) Obs.
1584. R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., III. x. 44. A comicall catastrophe.
1588. Greene, Perimedes, 25. Fortune after so sharpe a Catastrophe, to induce a comicall conclusion, tempered hir storme with this pleasant calme.
a. 1627. Hayward, Edw. VI. (1630), 102. And that all might appeare to be knit vp in a comicall conclusion, the Dukes daughter was afterwards ioyned in marriage to the Lord Lisle.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, IV. ii. 36. But Comicall was the end of Job, and all things restored double to him.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., IV. viii. 361. The Comical part of the Lives of Men are too full of Sin and Vanity, and the Tragical part thereof too full of Sin and Misery.
4. Resembling comedy, mirth-provoking; humorous, jocose, funny; ludicrous, laughable. (Of persons and things.) The ordinary sense.
1685. J. Scott, Chr. Life, II. 135. A man … may break jests upon pain, and entertain his company with comical Representations of the Groans and Agonies of dying.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. I. 73. The oddest and most comical scene is still behind.
1776. Johnson, in Boswell, 15 May. But the dog [S. Foote] was so very comical, that I was obliged to throw myself back upon my chair and fairly laugh it out.
1887. A. Riley, Athos, xiii. 214. There was something extremely comical in the sight of the Archbishop lying flat on his back with his high hat bounding down the side of the mountain and taking a short cut of its own to the bottom.
5. Queer, strange, odd. colloq.
1793. Ld. Sheffield, in Ld. Auckland’s Corr., II. 495. Opposition … seems suspended in a comical state.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., xxxi. I think it likely he may grant thy request, though, by my honour, it is a comical one!
1861. Geo. Eliot, Silas M., ii. And now it was all clear how he should have come from unknown parts, and be so ‘comical-looking.’
1888. W. Somerset Word-bk., Comical; (1) odd in appearance.
b. = ‘Queer’ in the sense of ‘peculiar or disagreeable in temper or nature, difficult to deal with, awkward, troublesome, dangerous.’ dial.
a. 1864. R. B. Peacock, Lonsdale Gloss. (Philol. Soc.), Comical, ill-tempered.
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., Comical, (1) disagreeable, queer in temper…. (2) bad, dangerous: said of roads.
1887. S. Chesh. Gloss., Comical, captious, hard to please.
1888. Sheffield Gloss., Comical, difficult, perplexing, ‘Wa, this is a comical job, ooever.’
c. = ‘Queer’ in the sense of ‘strangely out of sorts, unwell, ill.’ dial.
1884. Upton-on-Severn Gloss., Comical, unwell. ‘’E seemed that comical as ’e couldn’t cat no fittle.’
1889. Dorset dial. (fr. Correspt.). I be in a plain way: I do feel so comical in myself.
1889. Oxfordshire dial. (fr. Correspt.). I felt so comical, I thought I was going to die.
B. sb. A comical person. rare–1
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Eng. Spy, I. 253. All the comicals of Oxford brought together.
