critical

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: crit=i=cal

CIDE DICTIONARY

critical, a. [See Critic, n., Crisis.].

•  Qualified to criticise, or pass judgment upon, literary or artistic productions.  [1913 Webster]

  "It is submitted to the judgment of more critical ears to direct and determine what is graceful and what is not."  [1913 Webster]
•  Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a critical dissertation.  [1913 Webster]
•  Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious.  [1913 Webster]

  "Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion, that he would never have brought in such prayers as these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs."  [1913 Webster]
•  Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.  [1913 Webster]

  "O gentle lady, do not put me to 't,
  For I am nothing, if not critical."  [1913 Webster]
•  Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis of a subject.  [1913 Webster]
•  Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis, turning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation.  [1913 Webster]

  "Our circumstances are indeed critical."  [1913 Webster]

  "The small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work so much depends."  [1913 Webster]

Critical angle (Optics), that angle of incidence of a luminous ray at which it is wholly reflected, and no portion of it transmitted. The sine of this angle is the reciprocal of the refractive index of the medium. -- Critical philosophy, the metaphysical system of Kant; -- so called from his most important work, the “Critique of Pure Reason.”

OXFORD DICTIONARY

critical, adj.
1 a making or involving adverse or censorious comments or judgements. b expressing or involving criticism.
2 skilful at or engaged in criticism.
3 providing textual criticism (a critical edition of Milton).
4 a of or at a crisis; involving risk or suspense (in a critical condition; a critical operation). b decisive, crucial (of critical importance; at the critical moment).
5 a Math. & Physics marking transition from one state etc. to another (critical angle). b Physics (of a nuclear reactor) maintaining a self-sustaining chain reaction.

Idiom

critical apparatus = APPARATUS 4. critical mass Physics the amount of fissile material needed to maintain a nuclear chain reaction. critical path the sequence of stages determining the minimum time needed for an operation. critical temperature Chem. the temperature above which a gas cannot be liquefied.

Derivative

criticality n. (in sense 5). critically adv. criticalness n.

Etymology

L criticus: see CRITIC

THESAURUS

critical

Herculean, abstruse, accurate, acute, alarming, allegorizing, annotative, appreciative, arduous, attentive, bad, basic, belittling, brutal, captious, carping, caviling, censorious, charged, choicy, choosy, clamorous, clarifying, climacteric, close, commentative, commentatorial, compelling, complex, conclusive, conscientious, consequential, correct, critic, crucial, crying, cynical, dangerous, dangersome, decisive, delicate, demanding, demeaning, demonstrative, demythologizing, deprecating, deprecative, deprecatory, depreciating, depreciative, depreciatory, desperate, detailed, determinative, differential, difficile, difficult, dire, discerning, discoursive, discriminate, discriminating, discriminative, disparaging, disquisitional, dissertational, distinctive, distinguishing, editorial, elucidative, emergent, enlightening, essayistic, essential, euhemeristic, exact, exacting, exegetic, exemplificative, exigent, explaining, explanatory, explicative, explicatory, explosive, expositive, expositorial, expository, exquisite, fastidious, faultfinding, fine, finical, finicking, finicky, formidable, fraught with danger, fussy, glossarial, grave, hairsplitting, hairy, hard, hard-earned, hard-fought, high-pressure, high-priority, humbling, hypercritical, illuminating, illuminative, illustrative, imperative, imperious, important, insistent, instant, intricate, jawbreaking, jeopardous, judgemental, judgmental, judicative, judicial, judiciary, judicious, juridic, juristic, kairotic, key, knotted, knotty, laborious, loaded, lowering, mean, menacing, meticulous, minute, momentous, monographic, nagging, narrow, nice, niggling, no picnic, not easy, on slippery ground, on thin ice, operose, overcritical, parlous, particular, penetrating, perfectionistic, periculous, perilous, pettifogging, picky, pivotal, precarious, precise, precisianistic, precisionistic, pregnant, pressing, priggish, prudish, punctilious, punctual, puristic, puritanic, quibbling, rationalistic, rationalizing, refined, religious, rigid, rigorous, rough, rugged, scholiastic, scrupulous, scrutinizing, selective, sensitive, serious, set with thorns, severe, significant, slippery, slippy, spiny, steep, strenuous, strict, subtle, tactful, thorny, threatening, ticklish, toilsome, touch-and-go, touchy, tough, trichoschistic, tricky, ugly, ultracritical, uncertain, uphill, urgent, vital, weighty, wicked

ROGET THESAURUS

critical

Circumstance

N circumstance, situation, phase, position, posture, attitude, place, point, terms, regime, footing, standing, status, occasion, juncture, conjunctive, contingency, predicament, emergence, emergency, exigency, crisis, pinch, pass, push, occurrence, turning point, bearings, how the land lies, surroundings, context, environment, location, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), causation, attribution, circumstantial, given, conditional, provisional, critical, modal, contingent, incidental, adventitious, limitative, in the circumstances, under the circumstances, the circumstances, conditions, thus, in such wise, accordingly, that being the case, such being the case, in view of the circumstances, that being so, sith, since, seeing that, as matters stand, as things go, as times go, conditionally, provided, if, in case, if so, if so be, if it be so, depending on circumstances, in certain circumstances, under certain conditions, if it so happen, if it so turn out, in the event of, in such a contingency, in such a case, in such an event, provisionally, unless, without, according to circumstances, according to the occasion, as it may happen, as it may turn out, as it may be, as the case may be, as the wind blows, pro re nata, yet are my sins not those of circumstance.

Importance

N importance, consequence, moment, prominence, consideration, mark, materialness, import, significance, concern, emphasis, interest, greatness, superiority, notability, weight, value, usefulness, gravity, seriousness, solemnity, no joke, no laughing matter, pressure, urgency, stress, matter of life and death, memorabilia, notabilia, great doings, red-letter day, great thing, great point, main chance, the be all and the end all, cardinal point, substance, gist, sum and substance, gravamen, head and front, important part, principal part, prominent part, essential part, half the battle, sine qua non, breath of one's nostrils, cream, salt, core, kernel, heart, nucleus, keynote, keystone, corner stone, trump card, salient points, top sawyer, first fiddle, prima donna, chief, triton among the minnows, 'it', important, of importance, momentous, material, to the point, not to be overlooked, not to be despised, not to be sneezed at, egregious, weighty, of note, notable, prominent, salient, signal, memorable, remarkable, unforgettable, worthy of remark, worthy of notice, never to be forgotten, stirring, eventful, grave, serious, earnest, noble, grand, solemn, impressive, commanding, imposing, urgent, pressing, critical, instant, paramount, essential, vital, all-absorbing, radical, cardinal, chief, main, prime, primary, principal, leading, capital, foremost, overruling, of vital importance in the front rank, first-rate, superior, considerable, marked, rare, significant, telling, trenchant, emphatic, pregnant, tanti, materially, in the main, above all, kat' exochin, par excellence, to crown all, to beat all, expende Hannibalem!.

Danger

N danger, peril, insecurity, jeopardy, risk, hazard, venture, precariousness, slipperiness, instability, defenselessness, exposure, vulnerability, vulnerable point, heel of Achilles, forlorn hope, leap in the dark, road to ruin, faciles descensus Averni, hairbreadth escape, cause for alarm, source of danger, rock ahead, breakers ahead, storm brewing, clouds in the horizon, clouds gathering, warning, alarm, apprehension, in danger, endangered, fraught with danger, dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous, unsafe, unprotected &c (safe, protect), insecure, untrustworthy, built upon, sand, on a sandy basis, wildcat, defenseless, fenceless, guardless, harborless, unshielded, vulnerable, expugnable, exposed, open to, aux abois, at bay, on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks, at stake, in question, precarious, critical, ticklish, slippery, slippy, hanging by a thread, with a halter round one's neck, between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between two fires, on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of a precipice, on the verge of a precipice, on the edge of a volcano, in the lion's den, on slippery ground, under fire, not out of the wood, unwarned, unadmonished, unadvised, unprepared, off one's guard, tottering, unstable, unsteady, shaky, top-heavy, tumbledown, ramshackle, crumbling, waterlogged, helpless, guideless, in a bad way, reduced to the last extremity, at the last extremity, trembling in the balance, nodding to its fall, threatening, ominous, illomened, alarming, explosive, adventurous, incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim, nam tua res agitur paries dum proximus ardet.

Difficulty

N difficulty, hardness, impracticability, tough work, hard work, uphill work, hard task, Herculean task, Augean task, task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper, dead lift, dilemma, embarrassment, deadlock, perplexity, intricacy, entanglement, complexity, cross fire, awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus, net, meshes, maze, coil, crooked path, involvement, nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point, vexed question, vexata quaestio, poser, puzzle, paradox, hard nut to crack, nut to crack, bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum, where the shoe pinches, nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt, critical situation, crisis, trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble, scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest, sea of troubles, peck of troubles, pretty kettle of fish, pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado, false position, set fast, stand, standstill, deadlock, dead set, fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac, hitch, stumbling block, crab, curmudgeon, difficult, not easy, hard, tough, troublesome, toilsome, irksome, operose, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable, sooner said than done, more easily said than done, easier said than done, difficult to deal with, hard to deal with, ill-conditioned, crabbed, crabby, not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose water, awkward, unwieldy, unmanageable, intractable, stubborn, perverse, refractory, plaguy, trying, thorny, rugged, knotted, knotty, invious, pathless, trackless, labyrinthine, intricate, complicated, impracticable, not feasible, desperate, embarrassing, perplexing, delicate, ticklish, critical, beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties, under a difficulty, in a box, in difficulty, in hot water, in the suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape, in deep water, in a fine pickle, in extremis, between two stools, between Scylla and Charybdis, surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands, at cross purposes, not out of the wood, reduced to straits, hard pressed, sorely pressed, run hard, pinched, put to it, straitened, hard up, hard put to it, hard set, put to one's shifts, puzzled, at a loss, at the end of one's tether, at the end of one's rope, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, at a standstill, graveled, nonplused, nonplussed, stranded, aground, stuck fast, set fast, up a tree, at bay, aux abois, driven into a corner, driven from pillar to post, driven to extremity, driven to one's wit's end, driven to the wall, au bout de son Latin, out of one's depth, thrown out, accomplished with difficulty, hard-fought, hard-earned, with difficulty, with much ado, barely, hardly, uphill, against the stream, against the grain, d rebours, invita Minerva, in the teeth of, at a pinch, upon a pinch, at long odds, against long odds, ay there's the rub, hic labor hoc opus, things are come to a pretty pass, ab inconvenienti, ad astra per aspera, acun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire.

Occasion

N timeliness, occasion, opportunity, opening, room, event (eventuality), suitable season, proper season, suitable time, proper time, high time, opportuneness, tempestivity, crisis, turn, juncture, conjuncture, crisis, turning point, given time, nick of time, golden opportunity, well timed opportunity, fine opportunity, favorable opportunity, opening, clear stage, fair field, mollia tempora, fata Morgana, spare time, opportune, timely, well-timed, timeful, seasonable, providential, lucky, fortunate, happy, favorable, propitious, auspicious, critical, suitable, obiter dicta, opportunely, in proper course, in due course, in proper season, in due season, in proper time, in due time, for the nonce, in the nick of time, in the fullness of time, all in good time, just in time, at the eleventh hour, now or never, by the way, by the by, en passant, a propos, pro re nata, pro hac vice, par parenthese, parenthetically, by way of parenthesis, incidentally, while speaking of, while on the subject, extempore, on the spur of the moment, on the spur of the occasion, on the spot, carpe diem occasionem cognosce, one's hour is come, the time is up, that reminds me, now that you mention it, come to think of it, bien perdu bien connu, e sempre l'ora, ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius, nosce tempus, nunc aut nunquam.

Disapprobation

N disapprobation, disapproval, improbation, disesteem, disvaluation, displacency, odium, dislike, dispraise, discommendation, blame, censure, obloquy, detraction, disparagement, depreciation, denunciation, condemnation, ostracism, black list, animadversion, reflection, stricture, objection, exception, criticism, sardonic grin, sardonic laugh, sarcasm, insinuation, innuendo, bad compliment, poor compliment, left-handed compliment, satire, sneer, taunt, cavil, carping, censoriousness, hypercriticism, reprehension, remonstrance, expostulation, reproof, reprobation, admonition, increpation, reproach, rebuke, reprimand, castigation, jobation, lecture, curtain lecture, blow up, wigging, dressing, rating, scolding, trimming, correction, set down, rap on the knuckles, coup de bec, rebuff, slap, slap on the face, home thrust, hit, frown, scowl, black look, diatribe, jeremiad, jeremiade, tirade, philippic, clamor, outcry, hue and cry, hiss, hissing, sibilance, sibilation, catcall, execration, chiding, upbraiding, exprobation, abuse, vituperation, invective, objurgation, contumely, hard words, cutting words, bitter words, evil-speaking, bad language, personality, disapproving, scandalized, disparaging, condemnatory, damnatory, denunciatory, reproachful, abusive, objurgatory, clamorous, vituperative, defamatory, satirical, sarcastic, sardonic, cynical, dry, sharp, cutting, biting, severe, withering, trenchant, hard upon, censorious, critical, captious, carping, hypercritical, fastidious, sparing of praise, grudging praise, disapproved, chid, in bad odor, blown upon, unapproved, unblest, at a discount, exploded, weighed in the balance and found wanting, blameworthy, reprehensible, to blame, worthy of blame, answerable, uncommendable, exceptionable, not to be thought of, bad, vicious, unlamented, unbewailed, unpitied, with a wry face, reproachfully, Int, it is too bad!, it won't do, it will never do!, marry come up!, Oh!, come!, 'sdeath!, forbid it Heaven!, God forbid, Heaven forbid!, out upon, fie upon it!, away with!, tut!, O tempora!, O mores!, shame!, fie, fie for shame!, out on you!, tell it not in Gath!.

Detraction

N detraction, disparagement, depreciation, vilification, obloquy, scurrility, scandal, defamation, aspersion, traducement, slander, calumny, obtrectation, evil-speaking, backbiting, scandalum magnatum, personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade, chronique scandaleuse, roorback, sarcasm, cynicism, criticism (disapprobation), invective, envenomed tongue, spretae injuria formae, personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade, chronique scandaleuse, roorback, detractor, detracting, defamatory, detractory, derogatory, deprecatory, catty, disparaging, libelous, scurrile, scurrilous, abusive, foul- spoken, foul-tongued, foul-mouthed, slanderous, calumnious, calumniatory, sarcastic, sardonic, sarcastic, satirical, cynical, critical, damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering, teach the rest to sneer, another lie nailed to the counter, cut men's throats with whisperings, foul whisperings are abroad, soft-buzzing slander, virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes.