Sloppy use of the word criticise In the sentence References to testosterone poisoning are used as a convenient way to criticize men the word criticize is used in an ambiguous and unhelpful way Granted in the vernacular criticise is used as synonym for denigrate defame castigate and belittle but in an encyclopedic context it would probably be a good idea to restrict it to its scholarly and intellectual sense of study closely which is clearly not the sense meant here I d venture to say that its use in this sense is one piece of evidence that the Usage section at the very least could use some rewriting