critical
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English
Etymology
From Latin criticus + -al, from Ancient Greek κριτικός (kritikós, “of or for judging, able to discern”), from κρίνω (krínō, “I separate, judge”); also the root of crisis.
Pronunciation
Adjective
critical (comparative more critical, superlative most critical)
- Inclined to find fault or criticize.
- Synonyms: fastidious, captious, censorious, exacting
- A good teacher is fair but critical.
- Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
- This is a critical moment.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate , New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC:
- Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: […] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
- Extremely important.
- Synonyms: crucial, imperative
- It's critical that you deliver this on time.
- 2013 September-October, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist:
- Oxygen levels on Earth skyrocketed 2.4 billion years ago, when cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis: […] . The evolutionary precursor of photosynthesis is still under debate, and a new study sheds light. The critical component of the photosynthetic system is the “water-oxidizing complex”, made up of manganese atoms and a calcium atom.
- Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
- The movie was a critical success, but bombed at the box-office.
- 2012 April 19, Alexandra Sifferlin, “‘Healthy’ Foods that Really Aren’t: Nutritionists Weigh In”, in Time:
- “Unless you are purchasing cereal from a health food store, many brands that are marketed as healthy are usually full of sugar and processed ingredients,” says Garcia.
So when you’re choosing cereal, bread or any other whole-grain product, Garcia recommends reading labels with a critical eye.
- (medicine) Of a patient condition involving unstable vital signs and a prognosis that predicts the condition could worsen; or, a patient condition that requires urgent treatment in an intensive care or critical care medical facility.
- (medicine, by extension) In such a condition.
- The patient is critical.
- Two critical after fatal Wimbledon school crash
- Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.
- The political situation was so critical that the government declared the state of siege.
- (physics) Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.
- The reaction was about to become critical.
- (physics) Of a temperature that is equal to the temperature of the critical point of a substance, i.e. the temperature above which the substance cannot be liquefied.
Derived terms
- accelerated critical illness
- acritical
- antecritical
- anticritical
- autocritical
- bicritical
- biocritical
- business-critical
- cricondentherm
- crifanac
- critical altitude
- critical angle
- critical apparatus
- critical applied linguistics
- critical brain hypothesis
- critical care
- critical commentary
- critical condition
- critical dissonance
- critical exponent
- critical function
- critical hit
- critical illness
- critical incident stress management
- criticality
- critical load
- critically
- critical mass
- Critical Mass
- critical micelle concentration
- criticalness
- critical opalescence
- critical path
- critical period
- critical philosophy
- critical point
- critical point drying
- critical race theory
- critical rationalism
- critical reception
- critical Reynolds number
- critical section
- critical success factor
- critical temperature
- critical theory
- critical thinking
- critical tide level
- delayed critical
- ecocritical
- ethnocritical
- Eurocritical
- form-critical
- gender-critical
- gender critical
- gender-critical feminism
- gender-critical feminist
- geocritical
- gynocritical
- historical-critical
- historicocritical
- hypercritical
- intercritical
- life-critical
- metacritical
- mission-critical
- multicritical
- neocritical
- neurocritical
- non-critical, noncritical
- on the critical list
- overcritical
- paranoiac-critical
- postcritical
- precritical
- prompt critical
- pseudocritical
- quasicritical
- safety-critical
- self-critical
- semicritical
- sociocritical
- subcritical
- supercritical
- supracritical
- technocritical
- tetracritical
- time-critical
- transcritical
- tricritical
- ultracritical
- uncritical
- unicritical
Related terms
Translations
inclined to find fault
|
pertaining to or indicating a crisis
|
extremely important
|
relating to criticism
|
medicine: involving unstable vital signs
|
likely to go wrong
of the point where a reaction becomes self-sustaining
|
of temperature
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Noun
critical (plural criticals)
- A critical value, factor, etc.
- 1976, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of engineering for industry, volume 98, page 508:
- The second undamped system criticals show a greater percentage depression than the first.
- 2008, John J. Coyle, C. John Langley, Brian Gibson, Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective, page 564:
- Finally, criticals are high-risk, high-value items that give the final product a competitive advantage in the marketplace […] Criticals, in part, determine the customer's ultimate cost of using the finished product — in our example, the computer.
- In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.
Further reading
critical on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - Medical state on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- “critical”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “critical”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “critical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
