different between fearful vs critical

English

Alternative forms

• fearefull (obsolete)
• fearfull (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English ferful, fervol, equivalent to fear +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• Rhymes: -???f?l
• Hyphenation: fear?ful

Adjective

fearful (comparative fearfuller or fearfuler or more fearful, superlative fearfullest or fearfulest or most fearful)

1. Frightening.
2. Tending to fear; timid.

   a fearful boy

3. (dated) Terrible; shockingly bad.
4. (now rare) Frightened; filled with terror.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

     Those two great champions did attonce pursew / The fearefull damzell with incessant payns […]

Synonyms

• (frightened): frightened, timid, timorous
• See also Thesaurus:afraid and Thesaurus:cowardly

Translations

Adverb

fearful (comparative more fearful, superlative most fearful)

1. (dialect) Extremely; fearfully.

Further reading

• fearful in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• fearful in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Lauffer

English

Etymology

From the suffix -al and Latin criticus, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kritikós, “of or for judging, able to discern”) <????? (krín?, “I separate, judge”); also the root of crisis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??t?k?l/

Adjective

critical (comparative more critical, superlative most critical)

1. Inclined to find fault or criticize

   Synonyms: fastidious, captious, censorious, exacting

2. Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
3. Extremely important.
   • 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns

     Third Pole glaciers are critical to billions of people from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

4. Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.

5. (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.

   Coordinate terms: fair, serious, stable

6. Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.

7. (physics) Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.

8. (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.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

critical (plural criticals)

1. A critical value, factor, etc.
   • 2008, John J. Coyle, C. John Langley, Brian Gibson, Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective (page 564)

     Finally, criticals are high-risk, high-value items that give the final product a competitive advantage in the marketplace […] Criticals, in part, determine the customer's ultimate cost of using the finished product — in our example, the computer.

2. In breakdancing, a kind of airflare move in which the dancer hops from one hand to the other.

Further reading

• critical on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Medical state on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• critical in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• critical in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• critical at OneLook Dictionary Search