criticize

present singular third person criticizes · participle present criticizing · participle past criticized · past criticized · alternative criticise

1. BritishEnglishOxfordUSambitransitivetransitiveTo find fault (with something).

   They criticized him for endangering people's lives.

   4 more examples

   Homophobia is based on criticizing any sexual expression outside of procreational sex.

   1988 August 13, Elizabeth Pincus, “1978 Revisited”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 5, page 7

   Since when is it a hanging offense to criticize someone who's not doing the job he's paid generously to do?

   1999 June 18, Rod Beaton, “Astros winning despite obstacles”, in USA Today

   But far from being naïve Scandinavist ideologists, Blix et al. continually criticizes the utopian Scandinavists' talk of brotherhood and 'one culture', but also—and perhaps most importantly—made cultural separatism and provincialism, particularly in Norway, the object of crass satire.

   2009, Eirik Vassenden, “Norway: The Province and its Metropolities”, in Peter Brooker, Andrew Thacker, editors, The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, volume 3, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 658

   Then Federal Minister of Environment Antonin Vavrougek had strongly criticized the entire project while working at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, taking a more limitationist view about the possibilities of generating electricity and a more alarmist view about the effect on drinking water supplies.

   2010, Paul Hacker, Slovakia on the Road to Independence: An American Diplomat's Eyewitness Account, University Park, P.A.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN, page 52

   Synonyms: censure, pick at

2. BritishEnglishOxfordUSambitransitivetransitiveTo evaluate (something), assessing its merits and faults.

   Synonyms: censure, appraise, judge