Technical. Of or belonging to a τέχνη or art. Technical words and technical phrases, therefore, are such as are employed in any art by those who pursue it. Such are therefore called terms of art.
But as the language of the schools has given the title of arts to the studies which form the basis of a liberal education (hence the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts), and as the distinction between science and art is not uniformly observed, a particular science very generally having an art for its handmaid, nay, the science and the art being often the same thing viewed in different relations, the epithet technical has come to characterize the especial words and phrases which are used by the votaries of any particular pursuit.
To use technical language in ordinary discourse, and when there is no occasion for it, is justly stigmatized as pedantry. But in following the pursuits to which they belong, terms of art furnish two benefits which amply justify their adoption: they are aids to memory, and they are preservatives from ambiguity.
