Adjective: critical kri-ti-kul
- Marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws
"a critical attitude"
- Characterized by careful evaluation and judgment
"a critical analysis of Melville's writings"; "a critical reading"; "a critical dissertation"
- Urgently needed; absolutely necessary
"a critical element of the plan"; "critical medical supplies";
- vital
- Forming or having the nature of a turning point or crisis
"a critical point in the campaign"; "the critical test";
- decisive, climacteric
- Being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency
"an illness at the critical stage"; "a critical shortage of food"; "a critical illness"
- Of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism
"critical acclaim"
- (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
"go critical"; "a critical temperature of water is 100 degrees C — its boiling point at standard atmospheric pressure"; "critical mass"
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, scorching, searing, serious, severe, supercritical, unfavorable [US], unfavourable [Brit, Cdn], vituperative
Antonym: noncritical, uncritical
Encyclopedia: Critical