early 15c., "according to ecclesiastical law," from Medieval Latin canonicalis, from Late Latin canonicus "according to rule," in Church Latin, "pertaining to the canon" [..]

[historically, `according to religious law'] adj. 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 an [..]

(adj.) Authoritative or standard; conforming to an accepted rule or procedure. When referring to programming, canonical means conforming to well-established patterns or rules. The term is typically us [..]

Laws relating to the clergy.

If something can have a number of variant forms such as a file name or an URL (Uniform Resource Locator), the canonical form is the most official, standard, universal, complete, unambiguous, simple, u [..]

The preferred/main page when multiple pages have very similar content.

(adj) appearing in a biblical canon(adj) of or relating to or required by canon law(adj) reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible without loss of generality(adj) conforming to orthod [..]

canonicus

Canonical, in computer science, is the standard state or behavior of an attribute. This term is borrowed from mathematics, where it is used to refer to concepts that are unique and/or natural. Also kn [..]

The generally accepted, or established, procedure or quantity.

Reduced to a standard form to facilitate comparison.

Reduced to a standard form to facilitate comparison.

If there are multiple versions of similar pages, the canonical rel tag tells the WebCrawler that the page linked is the definitive version. Each non-canonical page must link to the canonical version w [..]

Present in a canon, religious or otherwise. ''The is a canonical New Testament book.'' According to recognised or orthodox rules. ''The men played golf in the most canonical way, with no loca [..]