The topic of the given article is the development of English adjectives with the particular attention to the adjectives with suffixes –ic and –ical. These two words ending in -ic and -ical stand out in a number of ways because of the large number of competing adjectives which contain these endings. Nowadays, the array of -icl-ical words is great. There are a lot of adjectives with which only the form in -ic is used and many adjectives in which the -ical ending is to be found Moreover, there are pairs of adjectives ending in -ic and -ical, which are more or less synonymous, some manifesting a noticeable semantic differentiation between the two forms. In many cases, the words in -icl-ical have nominal functions as well, usually developed through elliptical or absolute uses of the adjectives. As a result of conversion, some words in -ic, such as magic and panic, even have a verbal use. Considering the various uses of the words as regards different word-classes, the behavior of words ending in -ic and -ical is quite heterogeneous.