critical
adjEtymology
From Latin criticus + -al, from Ancient Greek κριτικός (kritikós, “of or for judging, able to discern”), from κρίνω (krínō, “to separate, judge”); also the root of crisis.
- derived from κριτικός
Definitions
Inclined to find fault or criticize.
- A good teacher is fair but critical.
- Let us go back to the beginning and consider what the charge is that has made people so critical of me, and has encouraged Meletus to draw up this indictment.
Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
- This is a critical moment.
Extremely important.
- It's critical that you deliver this on time.
- Third Pole glaciers are critical to billions of people from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
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Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
- The movie was a critical success, but bombed at the box-office.
Of a patient condition involving unstable vital signs and a prognosis that predicts the…
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.
- The patient's condition is critical.
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.
Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical…
Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.
- The reaction was about to become critical.
Of a temperature that is equal to the temperature of the critical point of a substance,…
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.
Needing great discrimination to be correctly classified
Needing great discrimination to be correctly classified; easily confused.
- critical plants
A critical value, factor, etc.
- The second undamped system criticals show a greater percentage depression than the first.
critical hit
In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the…
In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.
The neighborhood
Derived
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 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 · +55 more
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at critical. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at critical. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
9 hops · closes at critical
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA