Tropical means belonging to the tropics — the hot, wet band of the world either side of the equator. Tropical rainforest, tropical fruit, a tropical climate.
The word carries heat and humidity together, and that is the distinction from simply hot: a desert is hot and is not tropical. It has spread into everyday use for anything that suggests the tropics — tropical colours, a tropical print, a tropical drink with fruit in it — where nobody is making a geographical claim at all. Note tropical storm and tropical cyclone, which are technical terms with strict definitions in meteorology and appear in every hurricane forecast.
1adjectivetropicalBelonging to or coming from the hot wet regions near the equator.
“The greenhouse is kept at tropical temperatures.”
synonyms: equatorial
2adjectivehumidVery hot and humid.
“It was tropical in the kitchen with all four rings on.”
3adjectivesuggestingSuggesting the tropics in colour or style.
“He turned up in a tropical shirt in February.”
tropical is a climate or region.
From tropic + -al.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Nature & Weather, Sharper Adjectives