[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

canonic \canon"ic\ k.ano^n"i^k, canonical
\canon"ical\ k.ano^n"i^kal, a. l. canonicus, ll.
   canonicalis, fr. l. canon: cf. f. canonique. see canon.
   of or pertaining to a canon; established by, or according to,
   a canon or canons. "the oath of canonical obedience."
   --hallam.
   1913 webster

   2. appearing in a biblical canon; as, a canonical book of the
      christian new testament.
      pjc

   3. accepted as authoritative; recognized.
      pjc

   4. math. in its standard form, usually also the simplest
      form; -- of an equation or coordinate.
      pjc

   5. linguistics reduced to the simplest and most significant
      form possible without loss of generality; as, a canonical
      syllable pattern. opposite of nonstandard.

   syn: standard. wordnet 1.5

   6. pertaining to or resembling a musical canon.
      pjc

   canonical books, or canonical scriptures, those books
      which are declared by the canons of the church to be of
      divine inspiration; -- called collectively the canon.
      the roman catholic church holds as canonical several books
      which protestants reject as apocryphal.

   canonical epistles, an appellation given to the epistles
      called also general or catholic. see catholic epistles,
      under canholic.

   canonical form math., the simples or most symmetrical
      form to which all functions of the same class can be
      reduced without lose of generality.

   canonical hours, certain stated times of the day, fixed by
      ecclesiastical laws, and appropriated to the offices of
      prayer and devotion; also, certain portions of the
      breviary, to be used at stated hours of the day. in
      england, this name is also given to the hours from 8 a. m.
      to 3 p. m. formerly 8 a. m. to 12 m. before and after
      which marriage can not be legally performed in any parish
      church.

   canonical letters, letters of several kinds, formerly given
      by a bishop to traveling clergymen or laymen, to show that
      they were entitled to receive the communion, and to
      distinguish them from heretics.

   canonical life, the method or rule of living prescribed by
      the ancient clergy who lived in community; a course of
      living prescribed for the clergy, less rigid than the
      monastic, and more restrained that the secular.

   canonical obedience, submission to the canons of a church,
      especially the submission of the inferior clergy to their
      bishops, and of other religious orders to their superiors.
      

   canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as
      excommunication, degradation, penance, etc.

   canonical sins anc. church., those for which capital
      punishment or public penance decreed by the canon was
      inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.
      1913 webster
see also:
canon nonstandard canonical books canonical scriptures the canon canonical epistles 
catholic epistles canholic canonical form canonical hours canonical letters 
canonical life canonical obedience canonical punishments canonical sins 

[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

canonical
     adj 1: appearing in a biblical canon; "a canonical book of the
            christian new testament" syn: canonic
     2: of or relating to or required by canon law syn: canonic
     3: reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible
        without loss of generality; "a basic story line"; "a
        canonical syllable pattern" syn: basic, canonic
     4: conforming to orthodox or recognized rules; "the drinking of
        cocktails was as canonical a rite as the mixing"- sinclair
        lewis syn: canonic, sanctioned
see also:
canonic basic sanctioned 

[3] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

89 moby thesaurus words for "canonical":
   biblical, christian, gospel, mariological, mosaic, new-testament,
   old-testament, abbatial, abbatical, accepted, apocalyptic,
   apostolic, approved, archiepiscopal, authentic, authoritative,
   binding, canonic, capitular, capitulary, churchly, clerical,
   confessional, conventional, correct, creedal, customary, dictated,
   didactic, divine, doctrinal, doctrinary, dogmatic, ecclesiastic,
   episcopal, episcopalian, evangelic, evangelical, evangelistic,
   faithful, firm, formulary, gospel, hard and fast, inspired,
   instructive, literal, mandatory, ministerial, of the faith,
   official, orthodox, orthodoxical, pastoral, physicotheological,
   preceptive, prelatial, prelatic, prescribed, prescript,
   prescriptive, priest-ridden, priestish, priestly, proper,
   prophetic, rabbinic, received, regulation, religious, revealed,
   revelational, right, rubric, sacerdotal, sanctioned, scriptural,
   sound, standard, statutory, textual, textuary, theological,
   theopneustic, traditional, traditionalistic, true, true-blue,
   ultramontane

[4] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

canonical adj. very common; historically, `according to religious
   law' the usual or standard state or manner of something. this word has
   a somewhat more technical meaning in mathematics. two formulas such as 9
   + x and x + 9 are said to be equivalent because they mean the same
   thing, but the second one is in `canonical form' because it is written
   in the usual way, with the highest power of x first. usually there are
   fixed rules you can use to decide whether something is in canonical
   form. the jargon meaning, a relaxation of the technical meaning,
   acquired its present loading in computer-science culture largely through
   its prominence in alonzo church's work in computation theory and
   mathematical logic see knights of the lambda calculus. compare
   vanilla.

   non-technical academics do not use the adjective `canonical' in any of
   the senses defined above with any regularity; they do however use the
   nouns `canon' and `canonicity' not canonicalness or canonicality.
   the `canon' of a given author is the complete body of authentic works by
   that author this usage is familiar to sherlock holmes fans as well as
   to literary scholars. `_the_ canon' is the body of works in a given
   field e.g., works of literature, or of art, or of music deemed
   worthwhile for students to study and for scholars to investigate.

   the word `canon' has an interesting history. it derives ultimately
   from the greek `kanon' akin to the english `cane' referring to a reed.
   reeds were used for measurement, and in latin and later greek the word
   `canon' meant a rule or a standard. the establishment of a canon of
   scriptures within christianity was meant to define a standard or a rule
   for the religion. the above non-techspeak academic usages stem from this
   instance of a defined and accepted body of work. alongside this usage
   was the promulgation of `canons' `rules' for the government of the
   catholic church. the techspeak usages "according to religious law"
   derive from this use of the latin `canon'.

   hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an ironic
   contrast with its historical meaning. a true story: one bob sjoberg, new
   at the mit ai lab, expressed some annoyance at the incessant use of
   jargon. over his loud objections, gls and rms made a point of using as
   much of it as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink
   in. finally, in one conversation, he used the word `canonical' in
   jargon-like fashion without thinking. steele: "aha we've finally got
   you talking jargon too" stallman: "what did he say?" steele: "bob just
   used `canonical' in the canonical way."

   of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is implicitly
   defined as the way _hackers_ normally expect things to be. thus, a
   hacker may claim with a straight face that `according to religious law'
   is _not_ the canonical meaning of `canonical'.


see also:
knights of the lambda calculus vanilla 

[5] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

canonical
     
        historically, "according to religious law"
     
        1.  a standard way of writing a formula.  two
        formulas such as 9 + x and x + 9 are said to be equivalent
        because they mean the same thing, but the second one is in
        "canonical form" because it is written in the usual way, with
        the highest power of x first.  usually there are fixed rules
        you can use to decide whether something is in canonical form.
        things in canonical form are easier to compare.
     
        2.  the usual or standard state or manner of
        something.  the term acquired this meaning in computer-science
        culture largely through its prominence in alonzo church's
        work in computation theory and mathematical logic see
        knights of the lambda-calculus.
     
        compare vanilla.
     
        this word has an interesting history.  non-technical academics
        do not use the adjective "canonical" in any of the senses
        defined above with any regularity; they do however use the
        nouns "canon" and "canonicity" not "canonicalness" or
        "canonicality". the "canon" of a given author is the
        complete body of authentic works by that author this usage is
        familiar to sherlock holmes fans as well as to literary
        scholars.  "the canon" is the body of works in a given field
        e.g. works of literature, or of art, or of music deemed
        worthwhile for students to study and for scholars to
        investigate.
     
        the word "canon" derives ultimately from the greek "kanon"
        akin to the english "cane" referring to a reed.  reeds were
        used for measurement, and in latin and later greek the word
        "canon" meant a rule or a standard.  the establishment of a
        canon of scriptures within christianity was meant to define a
        standard or a rule for the religion.  the above non-technical
        academic usages stem from this instance of a defined and
        accepted body of work.  alongside this usage was the
        promulgation of "canons" "rules" for the government of the
        catholic church.  the usages relating to religious law derive
        from this use of the latin "canon".  it may also be related to
        arabic "qanun" law.
     
        hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an
        ironic contrast with its historical meaning.  a true story:
        one bob sjoberg, new at the mit ai lab, expressed some
        annoyance at the incessant use of jargon.  over his loud
        objections, gls and rms made a point of using as much of
        it as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to
        sink in.  finally, in one conversation, he used the word
        "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking.  steele:
        "aha  we've finally got you talking jargon too"  stallman:
        "what did he say?"  steele: "bob just used "canonical" in the
        canonical way."
     
        of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is
        implicitly defined as the way hackers normally expect things
        to be.  thus, a hacker may claim with a straight face that
        "according to religious law" is not the canonical meaning of
        "canonical".
     
        2002-02-06
     
     
see also:
alonzo church mathematical logic knights of the lambda-calculus vanilla mit ai lab gls 
rms 

Canonical >> C Words
Canonical, definition of term: Canonical
canonical_pag1.html

Canonical XML
...... form of a document and the canonical form of the canonical form of the ... Now let D2 be the canonical form of D1. Clearly, the canonical forms ... ..
http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n, score=100, date indexed=January 24, 2006, 5:39 am

Canonical Abbreviation/Acronym List
...Canonical Abbreviation and Acronym List ... CIO Cut It Out CLAB Crying Like A Baby CLOAKA Canonical List Of All ... ..
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/abbrev.html, score=99, date indexed=January 23, 2006, 7:22 pm

Canonical Smiley List
...Canonical Smiley List ... ..
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/smileys.html, score=98, date indexed=January 23, 2006, 9:24 am

Canonical XML
...... form of a document and the canonical form of the canonical form of the ... Now let D2 be the canonical form of D1. Clearly, the canonical forms ... ..
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-c14n-20010315, score=96, date indexed=January 23, 2006, 10:05 pm

Jesus Seminar Forum - Home Page
... ..
http://religion.rutgers.edu/jseminar/q_canon.html, score=91, date indexed=December 30, 2005, 2:45 pm

The Canonical List of Weird Band Names
... ..
http://sam.hochberg.com/bandname.html, score=91, date indexed=January 20, 2006, 1:18 am

ECanon: Online Search Engine for Canonical Texts
...... Canonical Texts. The ECanon is an XML database of canonical texts, ... ..
http://rosetta.reltech.org/ECanon/ECanon.html, score=89, date indexed=December 21, 2005, 2:06 am

Canonical XML
...... of XML called canonical XML. The intended use of canonical XML is in ... A canonical XML document is encoded in UTF-8. Ignorable white space is ... ..
http://www.jclark.com/xml/canonxml.html, score=88, date indexed=December 29, 2005, 8:22 pm

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canonical Hours
...... legislation on the obligation of reciting the canonical hours in as ... By canonical hour is understood all the fixed portion of the Divine ... ..
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07500b.htm, score=88, date indexed=January 22, 2006, 2:14 am

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