-icalsuffix

Sometimes forming an adjective from a noun in -ic, as music, musical, but more frequently a secondary adjective, as comic, comical, historic, historical. Its origin appears to have been the formation in late Latin of adjectives in -ālis on nouns in -ic-us, or in -icē, e.g. grammatic-us grammarian, grammaticē grammar, grammatic~āl-is grammatical, clēricus clergyman, clerk, clēricāl-is clerical. So in medieval Latin, chīrurgicāl-is, dominic-āl-is, medicāl-is, mūsicāl-is, physicāl-is. In French, adjectives of this type are few, and mostly taken directly from Latin formations, as chirurgical, clérical, grammatical, médical, etc. But in English they are exceedingly numerous, existing not only in all cases in which the term in -ic is a noun, but also as the direct representatives of Latin adjectives in -icus, French -ique. Thus we find before 1500 canonical, chirurgical, domestical, musical, philosophical, physical. Many adjectives have a form both in -ic and -ical, and in such cases that in -ical is usually the earlier and that more used. Often also the form in -ic is restricted to the sense ‘of’ or ‘of the nature of’ the subject in question, while that in -ical has wider or more transferred senses, including that of ‘practically connected’ or ‘dealing with’ the subject. Cf. ‘economic science’, ‘an economical wife’, ‘prophetic words’, ‘prophetical studies’, ‘a comic song’, ‘a comical incident’, ‘the tragic muse’, ‘his tragical fate’. A historic book is one mentioned or famous in history, a historical treatise contains or deals with history. But in many cases this distinction is, from the nature of the subject, difficult to maintain, or entirely inappreciable.Adjectives of locality, nationality, and language, as Baltic, Arabic, Teutonic, and those of chemical and other technical nomenclature, as oxalic, ferric, pelagic, dactylic, hypnotic, megalithic, have usually no secondary form in -al.Hence some derivative nouns in -icality, as technicality.