critical

comparative more critical · superlative most critical

1. Inclined to find fault or criticize.

   A good teacher is fair but critical.

   1 more example

   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.

   1993, Plato, translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant, “Justice and Duty (i): Socrates Speaks at his Trial: the Apology”, in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics), revised edition, London; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 39

   Synonyms: fastidious, captious, censorious, exacting, judgmental, slashing

2. Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.

   This is a critical moment.

   1 more example

   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.

   1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

3. Extremely important.

   It's critical that you deliver this on time.

   2 more examples

   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.

   2013 September-October, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist

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

   2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns

   Synonyms: crucial, imperative

4. Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.

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

   1 more example

   “Unless you are purchasing cereal from a health food store, many brands that are marketed as healthy are usually full of sugar and processed ingredients,” says Garcia. So when you’re choosing cereal, bread or any other whole-grain product, Garcia recommends reading labels with a critical eye.

   2012 April 19, Alexandra Sifferlin, “‘Healthy’ Foods that Really Aren’t: Nutritionists Weigh In”, in Time, archived from the original on 12 Oct 2022

   1. human sciencesEmploying or related to textual criticism, particularly through a stemmatological comparison of all extant texts and reconstruction of the original.
5. medicineOf 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.

6. broadlymedicineIn such a condition.

   The patient is critical.

   1 more example

   Two critical after fatal Wimbledon school crash

7. 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.

8. natural sciencesOf the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.

   The reaction was about to become critical.

9. natural sciencesOf 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.
10. biologyNeeding great discrimination to be correctly classified; easily confused.

    critical plants

plural criticals

1. A critical value, factor, etc.

   The second undamped system criticals show a greater percentage depression than the first.

   1976, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of engineering for industry, volume 98, page 508

   1 more example

   Finally, criticals are high-risk, high-value items that give the final product a competitive advantage in the marketplace […] Criticals, in part, determine the customer's ultimate cost of using the finished product — in our example, the computer.

   2008, John J. Coyle, C. John Langley, Brian Gibson, Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective, page 564

2. critical hit

   Synonyms: crit

3. In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.