critically

critical | American Dictionary

critical
adjective
us/ˈkrɪt̬·ɪ·kəl/

criticaladjective (IMPORTANT)

of the greatest importance:
critical industries
What happens in the next 48 hours is critical.

criticaladjective (VERY BAD)

very bad or dangerous:
He was admitted to Metropolitan Hospital in critical condition.

criticaladjective (JUDGING ENTERTAINMENT)

showing approval by those whose job is to judge entertainment:
The movie was a financial and critical success.

criticaladjective (DISAPPROVING PERSON)

expressing an opinion about something or someone, esp. a negative opinion:
My mother is always so critical of the way I dress!

critical | Business English

critical
adjective
uk /ˈkrɪtɪkəl/us
extremely important to the progress or success of something:
critical to/for sthLogistics and distribution are critical to an e-commerce venture's success.
Critical decisions need to be taken.
We see this as a critical time and potentially a turning point in the crisis.
extremely serious or dangerous:
be in critical conditionAs a result of unchecked pollution, the Chesapeake Bay is in critical condition.
The company had a loss of $511,000 and a critical shortage of cash.
saying that someone or something is bad or wrong:
A highly critical report was released Tuesday on BP's five U.S. refineries.
critical of sb/sthHe is very critical of his manager.
using careful judgment:
We need to do some critical thinking to solve this problem.

critically

adverb
The small business market as a whole is critically important.
Regional or bilateral trade deals need to be looked at more critically.

Examples of critical

critical
Journalists were among the key players, encouraging critical debate and public negotiation.
We thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their critical reading of, and suggestions for, this manuscript.
We thank our peer reviewers for their critical evaluation of the article.
The formal models that are consistent with a critical period rely on innate representations of abstract structure.
Here these hypotheses are replaced by the assumption that f is a nice diffeomorphism in between the critical points.
This potential and the paths are smooth (the same as the repulsive potential function) and there are no degenerate critical points in the field.
Above the lower critical radiation, the plasma generates additional heat flux, and the surface temperature is increased.
A critical developmental task of adolescence, therefore, is the construction of multiple selves in different roles and relationships.
This critical time gap is a key factor to determine the intercept capability of vision-based robotic systems.
The existence of discrete levels of critical water potential is suggestive of specific stresses that cells must accommodate during the acquisition of desiccation tolerance.
Indeed, the presupposition of reliance on such standards is that they have survived similar critical scrutiny.
We compare the parameter values for which there exists a strategy such that the process survives to the critical parameter of ordinary percolation.
The great technical problem of such a system is the critical mass of a fission chain reaction, making it difficult to miniaturize a fission explosion.
Unfortunately, many cognitive scientists have opted for a preferred cognitive paradigm while ignoring or misinterpreting critical technical issues.
The average expresses both the moderate quality of the studies and a quite critical attitude to the music teaching received.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.