Critical

/ˈkɹɪt.ɪ.kəl/ · adjective

Meaning

Inclined to find fault or criticize..

Definitions by Sense

1. Inclined to find fault or criticize.
2. Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
3. Extremely important.
4. Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
5. (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.
6. (medicine, by extension) In such a condition.
7. Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.
8. (physics) Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.

Example Sentences

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.

This is a critical moment.

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.

It's critical that you deliver this on time.

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.

Third Pole glaciers are critical to billions of people from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

The movie was a critical success, but bombed at the box-office.

Synonyms for critical

Antonyms for critical

Related Words

Word Forms

• more critical
• most critical
• criticals

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

Practice and Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions