Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
adjective
- without exceptions or conditions; absolute; unqualified and unconditional: a categorical denial.
- Logic.
- (of a proposition) analyzable into a subject and an attribute related by a copula, as in the proposition “All humans are mortal.”
- (of a syllogism) having categorical propositions as premises.
- of, relating to, or in a category.
adjective
- unqualified; positive; unconditionala categorical statement
- relating to or included in a category
- logic another word for categorial
1590s, as a term in logic, “unqualified, asserting absolutely,” from Late Latin categoricus, from Greek kategorikos “accusatory, affirmative, categorical,” from kategoria (see category). General sense of “explicit, unconditional” is from 1610s. Categorical imperative, from the philosophy of Kant, first recorded 1827. Related: Categorically.