6 uses
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1 —2 uses as in:
don't be so critical
Definition
finding fault and telling others; or tending to have unfavorable opinions
- I assume that the creature has been through several of them before—they all have—and that he always feels superior and patronising to the ones he has emerged from, not because he has really criticised them but simply because they are in the past.Chapter 9 (90% in)
- What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.Chapter 16 (24% in)
There are no more uses of "critical" flagged with this meaning in The Screwtape Letters.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —4 uses
exact meaning not specified
- In the second place, the search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.Chapter 16 (20% in)
- If he is a big enough fool you can get him to realise the character of the friends only while they are absent; their presence can be made to sweep away all criticism.Chapter 10 (63% in)
- What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.Chapter 16 (22% in)
- He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (specially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the "present state of the question".Chapter 27 (87% in)
There are no more uses of "critical" in The Screwtape Letters.
Typical Usage
(best examples)