magicaladj.
/ˈmadʒᵻkl/, U.S. /ˈmædʒəkəl/ 1. † c. = magic adj. 1c. Obsolete.
a. Of or relating to magic; = magic adj. 1a.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > [adjective]
witchOE
wielfulc1275
magica1393
superstitiousc1425
diabolic1485
magicala1492
prestigious?1534
sorcerous1546
witching1567
wizardly1588
wizard1638
stoicheiotical1646
witchcraftical1676
maleficious1684
Arabian-night1808
Magian1818
wizard-like1859
a1492 W. Caxton tr. Vitas Patrum (1495) i. clviii. f. clxiv/2 To ouercome hym as a Dysceyuour and begyler in ouercomynge his Magycall argumentacyons [Fr. magiques argumentacions].
1533 tr. Erasmus Enchiridion Militis Christiani sig. kiiv At the last leest we sholde be mynded to purchace the fauour of god after the maner of the iewes with certeyn obseruaunces as ceremonyes magicall [L. magicis ceremonijs].
1549 N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Paraphr. Eph. Argt. That Citie was full of Curiouse menne, and suche as were geuen to magicall artes.
1555 R. Eden tr. G. F. de Oviedo y Valdés Summarie Gen. Hist. W. Indies in tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 181v They..vsed certeine secreate magicall operations.
a1593 C. Marlowe Tragicall Hist. Faustus (1604) sig. A4v Come shewe me some demonstrations magicall.
c1610–15 tr. St. Ambrose Life St. Agnes in C. Horstmann Lives Women Saints (1886) 146 The superstition of the Christians, whose magicall artes do make them verie bragge.
1665 J. Glanvill Sciri Tuum: Authors Defense 35 in Scepsis Scientifica Those strange operations are not Mechanical but Magical.
1692 J. Locke Toleration iii. x, in Wks. (1727) II. 427 To confound the magical delusions of the Hereticks of that time.
1727 D. Defoe Syst. Magick i. iii. 64 Two things..naturally made way for these Magical Studies.
1765 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting (ed. 2) III. iv. 145 Some thought his musical assembly only a cover..for magical purposes.
1849 W. Irving Sketch Bk. (new ed.) 302 Certain colleges in old times, where judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other forbidden and magical sciences were taught.
1863 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. VII. 74 The service of God was asserted to be a reasonable service of the mind and heart, and not a magical superstition.
1889 W. R. Smith Lect. Relig. Semites 193 The use of baetylia, or small portable stones to which magical life was ascribed.
1938 R. G. Collingwood Princ. Art i. 10 I need not here go into the reasons which have led archaeologists to decide that the purpose was magical.
1967 K. Rexroth Spiritual Alchemy of Thomas Vaughan in B. Morrow World outside Window (1987) 247 Next comes the collection of magical papyri in Leyden, with which are associated a number of tracts of what might be called proto-alchemy.
1990 L. Picknett Encycl. Paranormal 108/2 Sex was central to Crowley's magickal practice.
b. = magic adj. 1b.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > [adjective] > used in magic rites (of object)
magical1607
magic1621
1607 B. Barnes Divils Charter iv. i. F4v Alexander in his studie beholding a Magicall glasse with other observations.
1623 J. Webster Dutchesse of Malfy iv. i. sig. I2 It wastes me more, Than were't my picture, fashion'd out of wax, Stucke with a magicall needle, and then buried.
1625 T. Middleton Game at Chæss iii. ii This is the room he did appear to me in; And, look you, this the magical glass that show'd him.
1652 E. Ashmole Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum Prolegomena sig. Bv By the Magicall or Prospective Stone it is possible to discover any Person in what part of the World soever.
1750 tr. C. Leonardus Mirror of Stones 100 Fastened over the heart with magical bands.
1904 L. F. Baum Marvelous Land of Oz 40 How could he ever have guessed that the man..would be brought to life by means of a magical powder contained in an old pepper-box?
1913 J. G. Frazer Golden Bough: Balder the Beautiful (ed. 3) I. 14 The magical bone, which the native sorcerer points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any chance allowed to touch the earth.
1971 J. H. Kelley in R. Moisés et al. Tall Candle Introd. p. xxxiii Magical cigarettes made from native tobacco (macucho) can be sent through the air to spy on people and they can be used to harm people.
1992 Analog Feb. 119/2 On the table before him were several traditional magical instruments, including an athame, a thurible, and a chalice.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > [adjective] > addicted to magic
magic1634
magical1634
1634 T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 24 They [sc. the people of Mohelia] are superstitious and Magicall.
d. In many role-playing games: designating weapons and other objects or constructs accorded magic powers within the created world of the game.
ΚΠ
1972 G. Gygax & J. Perren Chainmail (ed. 2) 34 Magical Weapons: Elves, hero-types, and certain magic users can wield magical weapons.
1981 B. Galloway Fantasy Wargaming vii. 145 An item will..resist use by a thief... This will not apply to magical swords, keys, etc, honestly acquired.
1991 Ace Feb. 78/1 Gameplay is noticeably smoother; piloting your fire-breathing dragon through the skies, you wipe out endless demons with the help of your crossbow, dragonbreath and other magical weapons.
1996 White Dwarf Sept. 45/1 I like to equip my fast cavalry with magical banners that increase their effectiveness in battle.
2. Resembling magic in action or effect; enchanting. Also: produced as if by magic.
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the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > [adjective] > resembling magic in effect
magicala1616
magic1696
a1616 W. Shakespeare Antony & Cleopatra (1623) iii. i. 31 Ile humbly signifie what in his name, That magicall word of Warre we haue effected. View more context for this quotation
c1750 B. Franklin Exper. & Observ. Electr. (1769) 353 The most magically magical of any magic square.
1788 J. Madison in Federalist Papers xliii. 65 The pretended doctrine that a change in the political form of civil society, has the magical effect of dissolving its moral obligations.
1818 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto IV xxix. 17 All its hues,..Their magical variety diffuse.
1824 M. R. Mitford in A. G. L'Estrange Life M. R. Mitford (1870) II. ix. 183 Some little hay was got in in a magical sort of way between the showers.
1851 J. P. Nichol Archit. Heavens (ed. 9) 13 The almost magical velocity of light.
1877 W. Black Green Pastures (1878) ii. 14 The magical disappearance of about fifty or sixty rabbits.
1884 Non-conformist & Independent 12 June 577/2 The warm and abundant rain-showers..have already had a magical effect upon the face of the country.
1908 E. F. Benson Climber 57 ‘But surely one may be forgiven for whistling Schubert,’ she said. ‘He is one of the magical things of the world, is he not?’
1945 E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited ii. i. 210 That..was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness..; it was the completion of her beauty.
1988 L. Appignanesi Simone de Beauvoir i. 1 Paris—that magical city across the waters.
3. Exhibiting the characteristics of magical thinking (see magical thinking n. at Compounds).
ΚΠ
1928 Mind 37 115 In the development of the notion of causality in the child he [sc. Piaget] distinguishes..two stages—the stage of belief in personal efficacy on the part of the child, and the stage which he calls phénoménisme, which is still a magical stage dependent mainly on association by temporal contiguity.
1929 J. Tomlinson & A. Tomlinson tr. J. Piaget Child's Conception of World iv. 162 The weakening of the sense of personality leads to realism and the realism to more or less clear magical ideas.
1963 Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 57 619 A child's first efforts to exercise control over his environment are essentially magical... Only later, with the development of the ego, is rational control undertaken.
1989 C. Clulow & J. Mattinson Marriage Inside Out v. 87 The five-year-old Derek was still of an age when thinking is often magical in quality and wrong connections can be made.
Compounds
magical circle n. = magic circle n. (in various senses).
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > graph or diagram > [noun] > diagram > magic square or circle
magical square1693
magical circle1698
magic square1704
magic circle1797
Nasik1866
1698 J. Dunton MS. Let. Rawl. D. 71 Poore puss, who cannot turn herselfe any way but she is repulst wth loud cryes and so frightened, that she falls dead in ye Magicall circle.
c1750 B. Franklin Exper. & Observ. Electr. (1769) 354 I am glad the perusal of the magical squares afforded you any amusement. I now send you the magical circle.
1915 Encycl. Relig. & Ethics VIII. 322/1 The famous constituent of the mediaeval magical circle.
2002 J. Salomonsen Enchanted Feminism v. 168 Witches use..a sword to draw an imaginary, magical circle around the physical circle of people holding hands.
magical realism n. = magic realism n.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [noun] > magical realism
magic realism1933
magical realism1937
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > types of narrative or story generally > [noun] > realism of stories, etc. > combined with surreal elements
magic realism1933
magical realism1937
1937 H. T. Lowe-Porter tr. F. Werfel Twilight of World 394 In all the little show-windows in the rue de La Boëtie you will see the magical realism which is the last word today.
1983 N.Y. Times 22 May ii. 14/5 Masters of ‘magical realism’, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Miguel Angel Asturias.
2004 Slavic Rev. 63 643 In addition to ‘magical realism’, Iskander's work has been linked..with the picaresque and the lives of saints.
magical realist adj. and n. = magic realist n. and adj. at magic realism n. Derivatives.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [adjective] > magical realist
magic realist1943
magical realist1981
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [noun] > magical realism > artist
magic realist1943
magical realist1981
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > types of narrative or story generally > [adjective] > combined with surreal elements
magic realist1943
magical realist1981
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > types of narrative or story generally > [noun] > realism of stories, etc. > combined with surreal elements > one who practises
magic realist1943
magical realist1981
1981 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 11 Oct. 36/5 I would like to think that a novelita like ‘Tamazunchale’ transcended the labels ethnic, Chicano, magical realist, or fantasist.
2001 C. Rody Daughter's Return ii. 60 The figure of a time-traveling daughter within a fiction of history obviously bears the influence of the magical realist fiction of Latin America and the larger decolonizing world over the past half-century.
magical square n. now historical = magic square n. at magic adj. Compounds.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > graph or diagram > [noun] > diagram > magic square or circle
magical square1693
magical circle1698
magic square1704
magic circle1797
Nasik1866
1693 A. Pitfield tr. S. de La Loubère New Hist. Relation Kingdom Siam II. 228 This problem is called Magical Squares because that Agrippa in his second book De Occulta Philosophia, cap. 22 informs us they were used as Talismans.
1693 A. Pitfield tr. S. de La Loubère New Hist. Relation Kingdom Siam II. 228 Mr. Vincent,..seeing me..studiously range the Magical squares after the manner of Bachet, informed me that the Indians of Suratte ranged them with much more facility.
c1750 B. Franklin Exper. & Observ. Electr. (1769) 354 I am glad the perusal of the magical squares afforded you any amusement. I now send you the magical circle.
1993 Burlington Mag. Mar. 220/3 Camerarius presumably did not have the [Durer] engraving in front of him when he described it (for he mistook the magical square for a spider's web).
magical thinking n. [compare French la pensée magique (1934 (several authors), in Revue Française de Psychanalyse 7)] Psychology and Psychoanalysis the belief (specially characteristic of early childhood and of many mental illnesses) that thoughts, wishes, or special but causally irrelevant actions can cause or influence external events; thinking founded on this belief.
ΚΠ
1930 Jrnl. Educ. Sociol. 3 504 Test for the determination of bias, prejudice, and magical thinking in adult and school population. A. O. Bowden, State Teachers College, Silver City, New Mexico. 1929.
1939 H. V. Dicks Clin. Stud. Psychopathol. 75 We note the..displacement from the significant and unbearable to the trivial and bearable, a feature also common to other psychoneuroses, but in obsessional cases mostly derived from the normal magical thinking of early childhood.
1971 H. Kohut Anal. Self xii. 305 In persons who have formed strong reaction formations against magical thinking..the increase in rationality which the analysis of the mobilized narcissism provides, may result in greater freedom.
1990 J. Bradshaw Homecoming i. 14 Dysfunctional parents often reinforce their children's magical thinking.
Derivatives
magiˈcality n. rare magical power or quality.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > [noun] > influence or power of
bewitching1535
spell1592
feyness1873
wizardry1884
magicality1924
1924 W. J. Locke Coming of Amos iv. 43 An untouched cheque-book of whose magicality he was innocently certain.
1992 Time Out 22 Apr. 89/4 All the music here is sparkling with the kind of sharp-kid magicality one associates with the Young Disciples.
ˈmagicalize v. rare (transitive) to give a magical character to.
ΚΠ
1866 M. Arnold Study of Celtic Lit. iv, in Cornhill Mag. July 119 The landscape..is suddenly magicalized by the romance touch.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2000; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.a1492