critical
IPA: krˈɪtɪkʌɫ
noun
- A critical value, factor, etc.
- In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.
adjective
- 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.
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Examples of "critical" in Sentences
- A new critical edition of Reportatio B remains a desideratum of research.