All 5 Uses of
critical
in
The Horse Whisperer
- He had criticized Lucy Friedman's lounge lizard piece which Annie considered quite brilliant; he'd queried the design team over two front covers—not in a heavy-handed way but enough to make an impression; and he'd sent Annie a long memo about how he thought their coverage of Wall Street was slipping behind the competition.†
Chpt 19 *criticized = gave an opinion of what was wrong with somethingstandard suffix: The suffix "-ize" converts a word to a verb. This is the same pattern you see in words like apologize, theorize, and dramatize.
- The downside of doing it alone was of course the inevitable criticism he would face for buying the wrong things.†
Chpt 1
- Words intended as motherly guidance seemed increasingly doomed to be taken as criticism.†
Chpt 2
- The office bloodletting had made her irritable and more than usually critical.†
Chpt 2 *
- Grace hadn't meant to imply any criticism of her mother but she knew from the way Diane looked at her that this was how it had sounded.†
Chpt 19
Definitions:
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(1)
(critical as in: a critical problem) important, serious, or dangerous
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(2)
(critical as in: don't be so critical) finding fault and telling others; or tending to have unfavorable opinions
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(3)
(critical as in: critical acclaim) relating to careful analysis or thoughtful judgement of what is good and bad about something -- possibly from people whose job is to share their expert opinions in a given industry
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(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
See a comprehensive dictionary for more specialized senses of critical including those in mathematics and nuclear energy.