Typical

How to spell typical

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce typical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does typical mean?

1. adjectiveShowing the usual characteristics or expected qualities of a particular kind of person, thing, or situation.

Typical in a sentence

• A typical working day for her begins with checking email and answering calls.

• The survey describes the spending habits of a typical household.

Where does typical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek typos, which literally meant 'a blow' or 'the mark left by a blow', and so came to mean an impression, a stamp, or a model. From typos the later Greek and Latin formed typikos, describing something that serves as a representative example or pattern. Medieval Latin used typicalis in much the same sense, and English adopted 'typical' in the early 1600s to describe something that is characteristic of a class or that represents a familiar pattern. The same typos root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'type', 'prototype', and 'stereotype', which all carry the idea of a fixed impression or model. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowel: it sounds like a faint 'uh', but it is written with an 'i', giving typ-I-cal.

How the word is built

• typ- (from Greek typos: impression, model, type)
• -ical (adjective suffix)