crucial

What it means

1. Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital.

   A secure supply of crude oil is crucial for any modern nation, let alone a superpower.

   4 more examples

   The battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944 is one of the crucial moments in the history of Finland.

   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.

   2014 March 7, Nicole Vulser, “Perfume manufacturers must cope with the scarcity of precious supplies”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 190, number 13, page 30

   Vocabulary provides a foundation from which grammar, phonology, and morphology emerge, and in a subject area it provides access to conceptual knowledge. Vocabulary selection for pedagogical purposes is therefore crucial.

   2018, Clarence Green, James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, →DOI, page 106

   Language is crucial because it is the best weapon against violence. When children don’t have the words to express their thoughts, they raise their fists.

   2021 October 1, A Falun Dafa practitioner in France, “Using Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to Guide My Young Students”, in Minghui

   Synonyms: big, central, consequential, critical, epochful, essential, extraordinary, fateful · Antonyms: noncrucial

2. archaicCruciform or cruciate; cross-shaped.

   Synonyms: noncruciform

3. JamaicaespeciallyslangBermudaVery good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music.

   Delbert Wilkins is the most crucial pirate radio DJ in Brixton.

In a sentence

The battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944 is one of the crucial moments in the history of Finland.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*(s)ker-“to turn, to bend”
2. Frenchcrucial
3. Englishcrucial

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.