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Horrible vs Critical - What's the difference?

horrible | critical | Related terms |

Horrible is a related term of critical.


As nouns the difference between horrible and critical

is that horrible is a thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act while critical is a critical value, factor, etc.

As adjectives the difference between horrible and critical

is that horrible is causing horror; terrible; shocking while critical is inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

horrible

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby Dick
    • Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles !
  • * 1982 , United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
    • A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
  • * 1991 , Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey
    • The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles .
  • * 2000 , John Dean, CNN interview, January 21, 2000:
    • I'm trying to convince him that the criminal behavior that's going on at the White House has to end. And I give him one horrible after the next. I just keep raising them. He sort of swats them away.
  • * 2001 , Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights
    • Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
  • A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

    • Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
  • *
  • *: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.
  • *, comment=The New Yorker, March 19
    • , passage=Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.}}
  • *, author=(Ray Bradbury)
    • , passage=Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces and fingerprints. Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end.}}
  • Tremendously wrong or errant.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1933, title=(My Life and Hard Times), author=(James Thurber)
    • , passage=Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Related terms

    * horrific * horrify * horror * horrendous

    References

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    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