critical

IPA: krˈɪtɪkʌɫ

A critical value, factor, etc.
In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.

Inclined to find fault or criticize.
Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
Extremely important.
Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
(medicine) Of a patient condition involving unstable vital signs and a prognosis that predicts the condition could worsen; or, a patient condition that requires urgent treatment in an intensive care or critical care medical facility.
(medicine, by extension) In such a condition.
Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.
(physics) Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.
(physics) Of a temperature that is equal to the temperature of the critical point of a substance, i.e. the temperature above which the substance cannot be liquefied.

Examples of "critical" in Sentences

A new critical edition of Reportatio B remains a desideratum of research.
Although I've used the term critical thinking, I have done so without defining it.
I am assumming it was the editors here that decided the term critical should be used in the title.
The term critical state can mean the point at which water would go to ice or steam, or the moment that critical mass induces a nuclear reaction, etc.
[Warburton explained this as "the critical juncture"] How the _critical juncture_ is the _spy o 'the time_ I know not, but I think my own conjecture right.
Thus, (and very casually for all you physicists) we refer to something being in a critical state (or use the term critical mass) when there is the opportunity for significant change.
The term critical mass is used to refer generally to the minimum amount of something needed to produce a given effect: The town needs a critical mass of industry to attract more business.
Those who do not, are generally subjects who source their information about the world from heavily censored publications and broadcast media, and may never have heard the term critical thinking.