caloric vs thermal

caloric

adj
  • Synonym of calorific (“relating to or producing heat or other energy”). 

  • Synonym of calorific (“high in calories and thus likely fattening”). 

  • Relating to calories. 

  • Containing calories. 

noun
  • The hypothetical medium of heat. 

thermal

adj
  • Pertaining to heat or temperature. 

  • Caused or brought about by heat. 

  • Having a rough finish by treatment with a blow-torch. 

  • Providing efficient insulation so as to keep the body warm. 

verb
  • To create a rough finish on stone by treating it with a high-temperature blow-torch. 

  • To fly an unpowered aircraft in a (thermal) column of rising air. 

noun
  • A column of rising air in the lower atmosphere created by uneven heating of Earth's surface. 

How often have the words caloric and thermal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )