crucial
adjEtymology
1706, from French crucial, a medical term for ligaments of the knee (which cross each other), from Latin crux, crucis (“cross”) (English crux), from the Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, to bend”). The meaning “decisive, critical” is extended from a logical term, Instantias Crucis, adopted by Francis Bacon in his influential Novum Organum (1620); the notion is of cross fingerboard signposts at forking roads, thus a requirement to choose.
Definitions
Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something
Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital.
- The battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944 is one of the crucial moments in the history of Finland.
- A secure supply of crude oil is crucial for any modern nation, let alone a superpower.
- The perfume industry is facing a major problem: maintaining constant levels of quality is crucial, but it is increasingly difficult to obtain a regular supply of all the necessary natural ingredients.
Cruciform or cruciate
Cruciform or cruciate; cross-shaped.
Very good
Very good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music.
- Delbert Wilkins is the most crucial pirate radio DJ in Brixton.
The neighborhood
Derived
crucial experiment, cruciality, crucially, crucialness, noncrucial
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at crucial. 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 crucial. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
10 hops · closes at crucial
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