# critical
## English
### Etymology

From Latin criticus +‎ -al, from Ancient Greek κριτικός (kritikós, “of or for judging, able to discern”), from κρίνω (krínō, “I separate, judge”); also the root of crisis.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /ˈkɹɪt.ɪ.kəl/
* (US) IPA: /ˈkɹɪt.ɪ.kəl/, [ˈkɹɪɾ.ɪ.kəl]
** Audio (US):(file)

### Adjective

critical (comparative more critical, superlative most critical)
* Inclined to find fault or criticize.
    Synonyms: fastidious, captious, censorious, exacting
    A good teacher is fair but critical.
* Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
    This is a critical moment.
** 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC: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.
* Extremely important.
    Synonyms: crucial, imperative
    It's critical that you deliver this on time.
** 2013 September-October, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist: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.
** 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns‎:Third Pole glaciers are critical to billions of people from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
* Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
    The movie was a critical success, but bombed at the box-office.
** 2012 April 19, Alexandra Sifferlin, “‘Healthy’ Foods that Really Aren’t: Nutritionists Weigh In”, in Time‎:“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.
* (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.
    Coordinate terms: fair, serious, stable
    The patient's condition is critical.
* (medicine, by extension) In such a condition.
    The patient is critical.
    Two critical after fatal Wimbledon school crash
* 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.
* (physics) Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.
    The reaction was about to become critical.
* (physics) Of 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.

#### Derived terms

* accelerated critical illness
* acritical
* antecritical
* anticritical
* autocritical
* bicritical
* biocritical
* business-critical
* cricondentherm
* crifanac
* critical altitude
* critical angle
* critical apparatus
* critical applied linguistics
* critical brain hypothesis
* critical care
* critical commentary
* critical condition
* critical dissonance
* critical exponent
* critical function
* critical hit
* critical illness
* critical incident stress management
* criticality
* critical load
* critically
* critical mass
* Critical Mass
* critical micelle concentration
* criticalness
* critical opalescence
* critical path
* critical period
* critical philosophy
* critical point
* critical point drying
* critical race theory
* critical rationalism
* critical reception
* critical Reynolds number
* critical section
* critical success factor
* critical temperature
* critical theory
* critical thinking
* critical tide level
* delayed critical
* ecocritical
* ethnocritical
* Eurocritical
* form-critical
* gender-critical
* gender critical
* gender-critical feminism
* gender-critical feminist
* geocritical
* gynocritical
* historical-critical
* historicocritical
* hypercritical
* intercritical
* life-critical
* metacritical
* mission-critical
* multicritical
* neocritical
* neurocritical
* non-critical, noncritical
* on the critical list
* overcritical
* paranoiac-critical
* postcritical
* precritical
* prompt critical
* pseudocritical
* quasicritical
* safety-critical
* self-critical
* semicritical
* sociocritical
* subcritical
* supercritical
* supracritical
* technocritical
* tetracritical
* time-critical
* transcritical
* tricritical
* ultracritical
* uncritical
* unicritical

#### Related terms

* critic
* criticism

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Noun

critical (plural criticals)
* A critical value, factor, etc.
** 1976, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of engineering for industry, volume 98, page 508:The second undamped system criticals show a greater percentage depression than the first.
** 2008, John J. Coyle, C. John Langley, Brian Gibson, Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective, page 564: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.
* In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.

### Further reading

* critical on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Medical state on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* “critical”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “critical”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
* “critical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.