categorical

From Late Latin catēgoricus +‎ -al.^[1] By surface analysis, category +‎ -ical.

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌkætəˈɡɔɹɪk(ə)l/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌkætəˈɡɒɹɪk(ə)l/
• (Dublin) IPA^(key): /ˌkæhəˈɡaɹɪk(ə)l/, /ˌkæʔəˈɡaɹɪk(ə)l/

• Audio (Southern England):

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categorical (comparative more categorical, superlative most categorical)

1. Absolute; having no exception.
   • 1856, Robert Gordon Latham, Logic in the Application to Language‎^[1]:

     We now see that they [propositions] are either conditional or unconditional, or, as the logicians say, hypothetical (conditional) or categorical (unconditional).

   • 1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams: Avon Books, page 74:

     Daytime interests are clearly not such far-reaching psychical sources of dreams as might have been expected from the categorical assertions that everyone continues to carry on his daily business in his dreams.

2. Of, pertaining to, or using a category or categories.

• (absolute; having no exception): absolute, categoric, unconditional, categorial

• (antonym(s) of “absolute; having no exception”): exceptional, conditional, hypothetical, relative

• categoricity

categorical (plural categoricals)

1. (logic) A categorical proposition.