Conical

How to spell conical

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce conical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conical mean?

1. adjectiveShaped like a cone, tapering evenly from a round base to a point.

Conical in a sentence

• The lampshade had a conical form that focused light downward.

• The volcano rose in a near-perfect conical outline above the valley.

Where does conical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek konos, which named a pine cone and, by extension, the geometric solid that tapers from a circular base to a single point. Latin took this in as conus, the everyday word for a cone, and from it scholars built the adjective conicus to describe anything cone-shaped. English added the familiar -ical ending, common in geometry and science, to produce conical in the late 1500s, when mathematical writing in English was flourishing. The same konos root still sits inside the modern word cone itself, as well as in coniferous trees, which bear cones. Spelling it is mostly a matter of remembering the single c and single n, since the simple base word cone offers no warning that the adjective is built on the Latin form.

How the word is built

• con- (from Latin conus / Greek konos: cone)
• -ical (adjective suffix)