[syn: critical, decisive]
6. being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency;
- Example: "a critical shortage of food"
- Example: "a critical illness"
- Example: "an illness at the critical stage"
7. of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism;
- Example: "critical acclaim"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Critical \Crit"ic*al\ (kr[i^]t"[i^]*kal), a. [See Critic, n.,
Crisis.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Qualified to criticise, or pass judgment upon, literary or
artistic productions.
[1913 Webster]
It is submitted to the judgment of more critical
ears to direct and determine what is graceful and
what is not. --Holder.
[1913 Webster]
2. Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature
of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a
critical dissertation.
[1913 Webster]
3. Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful
judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious.
[1913 Webster]
Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion,
that he would never have brought in such prayers as
these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman
customs. --Bp.
Stillingfleet.
[1913 Webster]
4. Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious;
censorious; exacting.
[1913 Webster]
O gentle lady, do not put me to 't,
For I am nothing, if not critical. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
5. Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to
principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis
of a subject.
[1913 Webster]
6. [See Crisis.] Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis,
turning point, or specially important juncture; important
as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue;
attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a
fever; a critical situation.
[1913 Webster]
Our circumstances are indeed critical. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
The small moment, the exact point, the critical
minute, on which every good work so much depends.
--South.
[1913 Webster]
Critical angle (Optics), that angle of incidence of a
luminous ray at which it is wholly reflected, and no
portion of it transmitted. The sine of this angle is the
reciprocal of the refractive index of the medium.
Critical philosophy, the metaphysical system of Kant; -- so
called from his most important work, the "Critique of Pure
Reason."
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
critical
adj 1: marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors
and flaws; "a critical attitude" [ant: uncritical]
2: at or of a point at which a property or phenomenon suffers an
abrupt change especially having enough mass to sustain a
chain reaction; "a critical temperature of water is 100
degrees C--its boiling point at standard atmospheric
pressure"; "critical mass"; "go critical" [ant:
noncritical]
3: characterized by careful evaluation and judgment; "a critical
reading"; "a critical dissertation"; "a critical analysis of
Melville's writings" [ant: noncritical, uncritical]
4: urgently needed; absolutely necessary; "a critical element of
the plan"; "critical medical supplies"; "vital for a healthy
society"; "of vital interest" [syn: critical, vital]
5: forming or having the nature of a turning point or crisis; "a
critical point in the campaign"; "the critical test" [syn:
critical, decisive]
6: being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency; "a
critical shortage of food"; "a critical illness"; "an illness
at the critical stage" [ant: noncritical, noncrucial]
7: of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism;
"critical acclaim"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
215 Moby Thesaurus words for "critical":
Herculean, abstruse, accurate, acute, alarming, allegorizing,
annotative, appreciative, arduous, attentive, bad, basic,
belittling, brutal, captious, carping, caviling, censorious,
charged, choicy, choosy, clamorous, clarifying, climacteric, close,
commentative, commentatorial, compelling, complex, conclusive,
conscientious, consequential, correct, critic, crucial, crying,
cynical, dangerous, dangersome, decisive, delicate, demanding,
demeaning, demonstrative, demythologizing, deprecating,
deprecative, deprecatory, depreciating, depreciative, depreciatory,
desperate, detailed, determinative, differential, difficile,
difficult, dire, discerning, discoursive, discriminate,
discriminating, discriminative, disparaging, disquisitional,
dissertational, distinctive, distinguishing, editorial,
elucidative, emergent, enlightening, essayistic, essential,
euhemeristic, exact, exacting, exegetic, exemplificative, exigent,
explaining, explanatory, explicative, explicatory, explosive,
expositive, expositorial, expository, exquisite, fastidious,
faultfinding, fine, finical, finicking, finicky, formidable,
fraught with danger, fussy, glossarial, grave, hairsplitting,
hairy, hard, hard-earned, hard-fought, high-pressure,
high-priority, humbling, hypercritical, illuminating, illuminative,
illustrative, imperative, imperious, important, insistent, instant,
intricate, jawbreaking, jeopardous, judgemental, judgmental,
judicative, judicial, judiciary, judicious, juridic, juristic,
kairotic, key, knotted, knotty, laborious, loaded, lowering, mean,
menacing, meticulous, minute, momentous, monographic, nagging,
narrow, nice, niggling, no picnic, not easy, on slippery ground,
on thin ice, operose, overcritical, parlous, particular,
penetrating, perfectionistic, periculous, perilous, pettifogging,
picky, pivotal, precarious, precise, precisianistic,
precisionistic, pregnant, pressing, priggish, prudish, punctilious,
punctual, puristic, puritanic, quibbling, rationalistic,
rationalizing, refined, religious, rigid, rigorous, rough, rugged,
scholiastic, scrupulous, scrutinizing, selective, sensitive,
serious, set with thorns, severe, significant, slippery, slippy,
spiny, steep, strenuous, strict, subtle, tactful, thorny,
threatening, ticklish, toilsome, touch-and-go, touchy, tough,
trichoschistic, tricky, ugly, ultracritical, uncertain, uphill,
urgent, vital, weighty, wicked