Electric means run by electricity, or carrying it. The electric kettle, the electric toothbrush, the electric fence at the edge of a field with a wire you learn not to touch twice.
Here is the pair that trips everybody. Electric goes on the thing itself — an electric car, an electric guitar, an electric shock. Electrical goes on the wider business of electricity — an electrical engineer, an electrical fault, electrical goods. Nobody says an electrical guitar. Electric has a second life describing atmosphere as well: when a crowd is holding its breath before the last penalty, the mood is electric, and there is not a wire in sight.
1adjectiveelectricWorked by electricity.~58%
“They bought an electric car last year.”
2adjectivecarryingCarrying or producing electricity.~40%
“Do not touch the electric fence.”
3adjectivethrillingFull of excitement and tension.~2%
“The atmosphere in the hall was electric.”
synonyms: thrilling, charged
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 141 sentences found in the wild and placed 104 of them on a sense (37 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: electrical
Ancient Greek ēlektron meant amber — the yellow lump of old tree resin that picks up scraps of paper after you rub it, and a related Greek word meant the shining sun. The Latin word built on it, ēlectricus, meant of amber, until 1600, when the English physician William Gilbert seems to have been the first to use it of the force itself, in his book De Magnete. Every wire, socket and power station since has been named after a stone that sticks to things.
New Latin
ēlectricus
English, today
electric
Borrowed from New Latin ēlectricus. c in a publication by Thomas Browne. From New Latin ēlectricus (“electrical; of amber”), from ēlectr(um) + icus; from Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (“amber”); related to ἠλέκτωρ (“shining sun”), of unknown origin (see which for more). The Latin term was apparently used first with the sense electrical in 1600 by the English physician and scientist William Gilbert in his work De Magnete.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA