a. [f. as prec. + -AL.]
1. Of or pertaining to a cube; of the form of a cube, cube-shaped. (Now more usual than cubic in this sense.) Cubical powder = cube powder; see CUBE sb. 3.
1592. R. D., Hypnerotomachia, 70 b. In the lowest Cubicall Figure … were ingrauen Greeke letters.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., I. B iv. How to measure a Cubical vessel.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 308. The small grains of sea salt and of lead are cubical.
1817. Keatinge, Trav., I. 203. Houses … mostly of cubical forms.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 103. A nearly cubical piece of a long epidermal cell.
2. Mensuration. = CUBIC a. 2. (Now Obs. in cubical foot and the like; and less common than cubic in other applications.)
1571. Digges, Pantom., III. iv. Q iij. So many cubicall feete is in the hollowe vessell.
1660. Willsford, Scales Comm., 197. Each of these Segments contains 50 cubical yards of earth.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. xi. 440. Multiply by 1728, the number of cubical inches in a cubical foot.
1854. J. Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., Chem., 183. 100 cubical inches.
1871. B. Stewart, Heat, 39. To determine the cubical dilatation of a solid.
3. Arith., Alg., etc. = CUBIC a. 3. Obs. exc. in names of certain cubic curves, as cubical parabola, hyperbola, etc.
1571. Digges, Pantom., III. ix. R ij. The roote cubicall of your Quotiente is the side of the lesser Cone or Pyramis.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. xii. 209. Quadrate and cubicall numbers.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Parabola, If a2x = y3; they call it a cubical paraboloid.
1873. B. Williamson, Diff. Calc. (ed. 2), xviii. § 252. The curve y2 = x2 (x–a) … is a cubical parabola having a conjugate point.
† B. sb. = CUBIC sb. Obs.
1676. Baker, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 13. All cubicals being reducible … to three equations.
