expressing disapproval
1 ~ (of sb/sth) expressing disapproval of sb/sth and saying what you think is bad about them:
a critical comment / report * The supervisor is always very critical. * Tom's parents were highly critical of the school.
important
2 extremely important because a future situation will be affected by it
SYNCRUCIAL:
a critical factor in the election campaign * Reducing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is of critical importance. * Your decision is critical to our future.
serious / dangerous
3 serious, uncertain and possibly dangerous:
The first 24 hours after the operation are the most critical. * a critical moment in our country's history * One of the victims of the fire remains in a critical condition.
seealsoCRISIS
making careful judgements
4 involving making fair, careful judgements about the good and bad qualities of sb/sth:
Students are encouraged to develop critical thinking instead of accepting everything they are told without questioning it.
of art / music / books, etc.
5 [onlybeforenoun] according to the judgement of critics of art, music, literature, etc:
the film director's greatest critical success * In her day she never received the critical acclaim (= praise from the critics) she deserved.
critically adverb:
She spoke critically of her father. * He is critically ill in intensive care. * I looked at myself critically in the mirror.
Rate this entry
About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for critical is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is critical a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, critical is tagged as adjective.
Does critical appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — critical appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
