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Circumstantial vs Conditional - What's the difference?

circumstantial | conditional |

As adjectives the difference between circumstantial and conditional

is that circumstantial is pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential while conditional is limited by a condition.

As nouns the difference between circumstantial and conditional

is that circumstantial is something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance while conditional is a conditional sentence; a statement that depends on a condition being true or false.

circumstantial

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential.
  • * Sharp
    • We must therefore distinguish between the essentials in religious worship and what is merely circumstantial .
  • Abounding with circumstances; detailing or exhibiting all the circumstances; minute; particular.
  • * 1806 , )
    • 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
  • * 2007 , John Burrow, A History of Histories , Penguin 2009, p. 326:
    • Second-hand but clearly from the best possible source - the King himself - [the story] is highly circumstantial , taking twenty-two pages of text.
  • Full of circumstance or pomp; ceremonial.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly, in the plural) Something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance.
    • the circumstantials of religion

    Antonyms

    * essential

    conditional

    English

    Alternative forms

    * conditionall (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (grammar) A conditional sentence; a statement that depends on a condition being true or false.
  • (grammar) The conditional mood.
  • (logic) A statement that one sentence is true if another is.
    • "A implies B" is a conditional .
  • * L. H. Atwater
    • Disjunctives may be turned into conditionals .
  • (computing, programming) An instruction that branches depending on the truth of a condition at that point.
    • if and while are conditionals in some programming languages.
  • (obsolete) A limitation.
    • (Francis Bacon)

    Synonyms

    * (in logic) if-then statement; material conditional

    Meronyms

    * (in logic) antecedent * (in logic) consequent

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Limited by a condition.
    • I made my son a conditional promise: I would buy him a bike if he kept his room tidy.
  • * Bishop Warburton
    • Every covenant of God with man may justly be made (as in fact it is made) with this conditional punishment annexed and declared.
  • (logic) Stating that one sentence is true if another is.
    • "A implies B" is a conditional statement.
  • * Whately
    • A conditional proposition is one which asserts the dependence of one categorical proposition on another.
  • (grammar) Expressing a condition or supposition.
    • a conditional word, mode, or tense

    Synonyms

    * conditioned * relative * limited * (in logic) hypothetical

    Antonyms

    * absolute * categorical * unconditional

    Derived terms

    * conditional entropy * conditional probability * conditional proof * conditional sentence