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Emergent vs Critical - What's the difference?

emergent | critical |

As adjectives the difference between emergent and critical

is that emergent is arising unexpectedly, especially if also calling for immediate reaction; constituting an emergency while critical is inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

As nouns the difference between emergent and critical

is that emergent is a plant whose root system grows underwater, but whose shoot, leaves and flowers grow up and above the water while critical is a critical value, factor, etc.

emergent

English

(emergence)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (lb) Arising unexpectedly, especially if also calling for immediate reaction; constituting an emergency.
  • * 1918 , The Missionary Review of the World , volume 41, page 818:
  • In all these great and vital things which America has discovered to be emergent necessities,
  • Emerging; coming into view or into existence; nascent; new.
  • (botany) Taller than the surrounding vegetation.
  • (botany, of a water-dwelling plant) Having leaves and flowers above the water.
  • (video games) Having gameplay that arises from its mechanics, rather than a linear storyline.
  • * 2008 , Jim Rossignol, This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities (page 126)
  • In short, emergent games are ones that allow a huge range of possibilities and don't dictate a strict, linear flow of events. A strategy game is emergent because so many units can interact and have some effect on each other.

    Derived terms

    * emergent evolution * emergently

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (botany) A plant whose root system grows underwater, but whose shoot, leaves and flowers grow up and above the water.
  • ----

    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.