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Complementary vs Critical - What's the difference?

complementary | critical |

As adjectives the difference between complementary and critical

is that complementary is acting as a complement while critical is inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

As nouns the difference between complementary and critical

is that complementary is a complementary colour while critical is a critical value, factor, etc.

complementary

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Acting as a complement.
  • *
  • Using the terminology we intro-
    duced earlier, we might then say that black and white squares are in comple-
    mentary
    distribution on a chess-board. By this we mean two things: firstly,
    black squares and white squares occupy different positions on the board: and
    secondly, the black and white squares complement each other in the sense that
    the black squares together with the white squares comprise the total set of 64
    squares found on the board (i.e. there is no square on the board which is not
    either black or white).
  • (genetics) Of the specific pairings of the bases in DNA and RNA.
  • (physics) Pertaining to pairs of properties in quantum mechanics that are inversely related to each other, such as speed and position, or energy and time. (See also Heisenberg uncertainty principle.)
  • Usage notes

    * Complementary and complimentary are frequently confused and misused in place of one another.

    Derived terms

    * complementarily * complementarity * complementary angle * complementary colour * complementary distribution

    Noun

    (complementaries)
  • A complementary colour.
  • (obsolete) One skilled in compliments.
  • (Ben Jonson)

    critical

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.
  • :
  • Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
  • Extremely important.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author= Katie L. Burke
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= In the News , passage=Oxygen levels on Earth skyrocketed 2.4 billion years ago, when cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis:
  • Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.
  • :
  • (lb) 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.
  • :
  • Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.
  • :
  • Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.
  • :
  • Derived terms

    {{der3, criticality , critically , criticalness , critical angle , critical mass , critical point , critical thinking , mission-critical , pseudocritical , supercritical}}

    See also

    * (wikipedia "critical") * (Medical state)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A critical value, factor, etc.
  • * 1976 , American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of engineering for industry (volume 98, page 508)
  • The second undamped system criticals show a greater percentage depression than the first.
  • * 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.