textual

adjective

tex·​tu·​al ˈteks-chə-wəl How to pronounce textual (audio)
-chəl
: of, relating to, or based on a text
textuality noun
textually adverb

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Before the invention of the printing press, books were produced by hand. When the text of a book is copied this way, textual errors can creep in, and a text that's been copied again and again can contain many such errors. By comparing different copies of a work, textual critics try to figure out where the copyists went wrong and restore the text to its original form so that modern readers can again enjoy the correct versions of ancient texts. When a class performs textual analysis of a poem, however, they are looking closely at its individual words and phrases in an effort to determine the poem's meanings.

Examples of textual in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Sampling is foundational to rap music as both an aural and a textual medium. Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2025 They are trained on vast amounts of textual data but don't construct an internal representation of the world that can be tested against new information. Gabriel Snyder, Newsweek, 18 Mar. 2025 VLMs integrate computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP), enabling AVs to interpret multimodal data by linking visual inputs with textual descriptions. Xingjian "xj" Zhang, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025 None of these textual and historical realities will matter, however, if the courts ultimately decide that a president – simply saying that the country is being invaded by a foreign nation – is sufficient to legally invoke the act and is not subject to judicial review. Daniel Tichenor, The Conversation, 17 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for textual

Word History

Etymology

Middle English textuel, from Medieval Latin textus text

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of textual was in the 15th century

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Cite this Entry

“Textual.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textual. Accessed 28 Mar. 2025.

Kids Definition

textual

adjective
tex·​tu·​al ˈteks-chə(-wə)l How to pronounce textual (audio)
: of, relating to, or based on a text
textuality
ˌteks-chə-ˈwal-ət-ē
noun
textually
ˈtek-chə-(wə)l-ē
adverb

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