as in authoritative
being the most accurate and apparently thorough
a magisterial biography of Thomas Jefferson that has never been superseded
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Recent Examples of magisterial
Writing on the seventieth anniversary of the war’s end, in the preface to his magisterial The German War (2015), Oxford’s Nicholas Stargardt described the book’s genesis a decade earlier, in 2005.
—
Chris Doyle, Hartford Courant, 2 Apr. 2025
The most complete studies were done by the British archaeologist and scholar Thomas Ashby, who scoured the remotest corners of the Roman Campagna from 1906 to 1925, and produced a magisterial tome, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, which was published posthumously by his wife in 1935.
—Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Mar. 2025
Heston’s square-jawed nobility was rarely better exploited — not even a cameo from Jesus near the end can overshadow his magisterial heroism.
—Will Leitch, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2025
There have been pure hammerings inflicted by a magisterial opponent, there have been vain attempts to keep the score down, there have been have-a-go failures and defensive mishaps.
—George Caulkin, The Athletic, 15 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for magisterial
Chris Doyle, Hartford Courant, 2 Apr. 2025
The most complete studies were done by the British archaeologist and scholar Thomas Ashby, who scoured the remotest corners of the Roman Campagna from 1906 to 1925, and produced a magisterial tome, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, which was published posthumously by his wife in 1935.
—Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Mar. 2025
Heston’s square-jawed nobility was rarely better exploited — not even a cameo from Jesus near the end can overshadow his magisterial heroism.
—Will Leitch, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2025
There have been pure hammerings inflicted by a magisterial opponent, there have been vain attempts to keep the score down, there have been have-a-go failures and defensive mishaps.
—George Caulkin, The Athletic, 15 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for magisterial
Recent Examples of Synonyms for magisterial
Adjective
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In this authoritative, elegant biography, Daut meticulously combs the torrents of contemporary letters and broadsheets to draw a complex, contradictory portrait of Christophe, also known as King Henry.—
Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs,
22 Apr. 2025
-
The distant therapist Not too long ago, therapists acted like black boxes and authoritative gods.—
David E. Tolchinsky,
The Conversation,
17 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Magisterial.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/magisterial. Accessed 2 May. 2025.
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