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
Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 3 Apr. 2025
Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, made a textual case for why gun parts kits can be subject to federal regulations in the same way as any other gun.
—Devin Dwyer, ABC News, 26 Mar. 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for textual
Cite this Entry
“Textual.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textual. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.
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textual
adjective
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