Graphical

How to spell graphical

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce graphical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does graphical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to visual representation, such as diagrams, charts, or on-screen images, rather than text or numbers alone.

Graphical in a sentence

• The report includes a graphical summary of the quarterly sales figures.

• The new software offers a clean graphical interface for editing photos.

Where does graphical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek verb graphein, which literally meant 'to scratch, write, or draw', the same root that lies behind 'graph', 'photograph', and 'autograph'. From it came the Greek adjective graphikos, meaning 'of or relating to writing or drawing', which passed into Latin as graphicus. English took up 'graphic' in the seventeenth century to describe things shown vividly or in pictures, and 'graphical' was formed soon after by adding the further adjective ending -al, a common English habit of stacking suffixes for words like 'comical' or 'mythical'. Over time 'graphical' settled into a more technical role, describing diagrams, charts, and the visual side of computing, as in 'graphical user interface'. The spelling stays steady across dialects, and the main thing to remember is the 'ph' that spells the /f/ sound, a fingerprint of its Greek ancestry.

How the word is built

• graph (from Greek graphein: to write or draw)
• -ic (adjective)
• -al (adjective suffix)