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.
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It is submitted to the judgment of more critical
ears to direct and determine what is graceful and
what is not. --Holder.
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2. Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature
of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a
critical dissertation.
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3. Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful
judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious.
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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.
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4. Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious;
censorious; exacting.
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O gentle lady, do not put me to 't,
For I am nothing, if not critical. --Shak.
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5. Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to
principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis
of a subject.
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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.
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Our circumstances are indeed critical. --Burke.
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The small moment, the exact point, the critical
minute, on which every good work so much depends.
--South.
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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."
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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: uncritical]
4: urgently needed; absolutely necessary; "a critical element
of the plan"; "critical medical supplies"; "vital for a
healthy society"; "of vital interest" [syn: vital]
5: forming or having the nature of a turning point or crisis;
"a critical point in the campaign"; "the critical test"
[syn: 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]
7: of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism;
"critical acclaim"
WordNet (r) 2.0
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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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