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Dire vs Critical - What's the difference?

dire | critical | Synonyms |

As adjectives the difference between dire and critical

is that dire is warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous while critical is inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

As a noun critical is

a critical value, factor, etc.

dire

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Warning of bad consequences: ill-boding; portentous.
  • Requiring action to prevent bad consequences: urgent, pressing.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-14, volume=411, issue=8891, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= It's a gas , passage=One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains.
  • Expressing bad consequences: dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable.
  • (label) Bad in quality, awful, terrible.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=Arindam Rej, work=BBC Sport
    • , title= Norwich 4-2 Newcastle , passage=A second Norwich goal in four minutes arrived after some dire Newcastle defending. Gosling gave the ball away with a sloppy back-pass, allowing Crofts to curl in a cross that the unmarked Morison powered in with a firm, 12-yard header.}}

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "dire")

    Derived terms

    * direful * direly * direness * dire sisters * dire straits * dire wolf

    See also

    * voir dire

    Anagrams

    * * * ----

    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}}

    Related terms

    * critic * criticism

    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.

    External links

    * * * English words suffixed with -al