textual
adjective
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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
Meghana Puvvadi, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2025
But, for the most part, the book doesn’t provide much in the way of textual explanation, and instead forces a close read of the images themselves.
—Sukjong Hong, Curbed, 21 Feb. 2025
Applying pressure to soft, secret places, the critic exposed fake oppositions, crude essentialisms, bourgeois hegemonies, totalizing mechanisms, humanist teleologies, squalid repressions, influential aporias, and many more textual fragilities.
—Emily Eakin, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2025
The contrivances required for the characters not to figure out the true identities of their mysterious correspondents are a little much, but director and co-writer Maria Torres (working from Wendy Mora’s novel) applies a light touch to both the in-person romance and the textual courtship.
—Josh Bell, Vulture, 13 Feb. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Textual.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textual. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
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textual
adjective
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