circumstantial

CEFRC1

/səɹ.kəmˈstænʃəl/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Based on facts that suggest something but do not prove it.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Abounding with minor circumstances; in great detail; particular.

Examples

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Also pronounced

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

Involving evidence that relies on inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact, thus, suggesting guilt but not directly proving it.
Pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential.
Full of circumstance or pomp; ceremonial.

In context

The evidence is all circumstantial.
It is unlikely he will be convicted; the evidence against him is circumstantial at best.
For although my information appears too direct and circumstantial to be fictitious, yet the magnitude of the enterprise, the desperation of the plan, and the stupendous consequences with which it seems pregnant, stagger my belief […]

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

We must therefore distinguish between the essentials in religious worship […] and what is merely circumstantial.
1754, John Sharp, Sermons
Evidence for cannibalism abounds - even if circumstantial - both from the modern world and throughout history, but academic anthropology has found itself in a funk of denial.
2000 September 7, Henry Gee, “Eating people - is it bad taste?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 May 2014
Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he known a charge of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it entirely circumstantial, but the greater part of it was practically unproved.
1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 162
My Unkle's account is more circumstantial I must confess—but I believe mine is the true one for all that.
1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, V.ii
Second-hand but clearly from the best possible source - the King himself - [the story] is highly circumstantial, taking twenty-two pages of text.
2007, John Burrow, A History of Histories, Penguin, published 2009, page 326

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

From Latin circumstantia + English -al, equivalent to circumstance + -ial.