CIRCUMSTANTIAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does circumstantial mean? 

• CIRCUMSTANTIAL (adjective)
  The adjective CIRCUMSTANTIAL has 1 sense:

1. fully detailed and specific about particulars

  Familiarity information: CIRCUMSTANTIAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CIRCUMSTANTIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fully detailed and specific about particulars

Context example:

a circumstantial report about the debate

Similar:

specific ((sometimes followed by 'to') applying to or characterized by or distinguishing something particular or special or unique)

Derivation:

circumstance (the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event)

 Context examples 

The rings and gaps in these discs provide intriguing circumstantial evidence for the presence of protoplanets.

(ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets around Newborn Star, ESO)

I had no fear, therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be brought forward strong enough to convict her.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here.”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The style is very plain and simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author, after the manner of travellers, is a little too circumstantial.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

At the same time I recognise that the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some new development may upset it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s example.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That evidence, he observed, was hardly required in so glaring a case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our judges like to condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it ever so decisive.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Most of those reports were a nightmare—grotesque, circumstantial, eager and untrue.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)