PRAGMATIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Pragmatic

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/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

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"Pragmatic" Quotes from Famous Books

... teach him fine manners. It was a difficult undertaking. Often, as might have been expected, she lost her patience. Mary was an excellent girl, but rather kindlesome and pragmatic. Like most of the prairie folk, for instance, Abe Lincoln had been accustomed to reach for the butter with his own knife, and to find rest in attitudes extremely indolent and unbecoming. He enjoyed sprawling on the floor in his shirt-sleeves ...

— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... he thought of Bergson and Nietzsche or even of Hegel; but for the constant reader his detachment or attachment to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas is not nearly so important as his personal impressions of both the little things and the big things of our contemporary life. Whether you are pragmatic or not, you must, if you are at all in love with life, become a Jamesonian after you have read the "Letters"! And his son, Mr. Henry James, who, we may hope, may resemble his father in time, has arranged them so ...

— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... by any other man, for a very justifiable refusal. He was very clever too—had read much, and all that kind of thing. But he was not the sort of man you might expect to get on well with women. Unless with very intimate friends, he was a trifle silent and reserved. Often he was inclined to be pragmatic and sententious, and had a habit of saying unpleasantly bitter things when some careless joke was being made. He was a little dingy in appearance; and a man who had a somewhat cold manner, who was sallow of face, who was obviously getting gray, and ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... markedly different from its corresponding cults in Germany and in the United States. In Germany, reformed Judaism has its nascence in free thought, and it aims to appeal to the intellectual. With us liberalism is stimulated by our pragmatic evaluation of religion, and is held out as a bait to the indifferent. In England it arises from the growing admiration on the part of a certain class of Jews for what they consider the inwardness and the superior ...

— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... enter the field of psychological investigation. The general psychological problem is to describe the actual psychic events as they occur, to analyze them into their simplest elements, and inasmuch as it is this purely pragmatic application of psychology to the problem of inference that concerns us, we need to deal only with that law which defines the combination of images and with the question,—how the spirit achieves this combination. The material ...

— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

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