PRAGMATIC • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Pragmatic

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/prægmˈætɪk/ Listen

adjective

Pragmatical, Pragmatic adj.

1.

Of or pertaining to business or to affairs; of the nature of business; practical; material; businesslike in habit or manner. "The next day... I began to be very pragmatical." "We can not always be contemplative, diligent, or pragmatical, abroad; but have need of some delightful intermissions." "Low, pragmatical, earthly views of the gospel."

2.

Busy; specifically, busy in an objectionable way; officious; fussy and positive; meddlesome. "Pragmatical officers of justice." "The fellow grew so pragmatical that he took upon him the government of my whole family."

3.

Philosophical; dealing with causes, reasons, and effects, rather than with details and circumstances; said of literature. "Pragmatic history." "Pragmatic poetry."

Pragmatic sanction, a solemn ordinance or decree issued by the head or legislature of a state upon weighty matters; a term derived from the Byzantine empire. In European history, two decrees under this name are particularly celebrated. One of these, issued by Charles VII. of France, A. D. 1438, was the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican church; the other, issued by Charles VI. of Germany, A. D. 1724, settled his hereditary dominions on his eldest daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa.

noun

Pragmatic n.

1.

One skilled in affairs. "My attorney and solicitor too; a fine pragmatic."

2.

A solemn public ordinance or decree. "A royal pragmatic was accordingly passed."

See images of 'Pragmatic'

Etymology of 'Pragmatic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Pragmatic" Quotes from Famous Books

... the United States two years ago the lecture-rooms of Columbia University, like those of the College de France, were packed to the doors and the effect of his message was enhanced by his eloquence of delivery and charm of personality. The pragmatic character of his philosophy appeals to the genius of the American people as is shown by the influence of the teaching of William James and John Dewey, whose point of view in this respect ...

— Dreams • Henri Bergson

... which the aesthetic life plays in determining one's choice of a religion. Men, I said awhile ago, involuntarily intellectualize their religious experience. They need formulas, just as they need fellowship in worship. I spoke, therefore, too contemptuously of the pragmatic uselessness of the famous scholastic list of attributes of the deity, for they have one use which I neglected to consider. The eloquent passage in which Newman enumerates them[301] puts us on the track of it. Intoning them as ...

— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... yet in spite of his encomiums, there was nothing in the behaviour of the girl that corresponded with such an amiable character: she had, indeed a beautiful face, but strongly marked with something, more like impudence than boldness, and more of that of a pragmatic mistress than an humble servant; and therefore we did not accept, what I was very certain, she would not have performed. I impatiently, however, waited their return, and verily believed the old man had bought his crimson velvet breeches ...

— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... quite clear that Mr. Joshua Brigham regarded these transactions as so many Pragmatic Sanctions, that were to clear the moral and legal atmospheres of any atoms of difficulty that might exist in the forms of old opinions, to his getting easily out of debt, in the one case, and suddenly rich in the other. ...

— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... remarks correctly that Schiller occupies with Kant a middle stage between the older pragmatic historians, upon whom Faust[83] pours his scathing ridicule, and the later school of Ranke, whose principle was to extinguish self and simply tell what happened and how. He does not moralize like ...

— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com