WordWeb Online

1. Marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws
   "a critical attitude"
    
2. Urgently needed; absolutely necessary
   "a critical element of the plan"; "critical medical supplies";
   - vital
    
3. Forming or having the nature of a turning point or crisis
   "a critical point in the campaign"; "the critical test";
   - decisive, climacteric
    
4. Characterized by careful evaluation and judgment
   "a critical reading"; "a critical dissertation"; "a critical analysis of Melville's writings"
    
5. 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"
    
6. Of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism
   "critical acclaim"
    
7. (physics) 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"

See also: acute, appraising, captious, censorious, coruscating, crisis, criticality, crucial, dangerous, deprecative, desperate, dire, discerning, discriminative, evaluative, faultfinding, grave, grievous, hypercritical, important, indispensable, judicial, life-threatening, overcritical, sarcastic, sarky [Brit, informal], scathing, scholarly, searing, serious, severe, supercritical, unfavorable [US], unfavourable [Brit, Cdn], vituperative

Antonym: noncritical, uncritical

Encyclopedia: Critical