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Salient vs Critical - What's the difference?

salient | critical |

As adjectives the difference between salient and critical

is that salient is worthy of note; pertinent or relevant while critical is inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

As nouns the difference between salient and critical

is that salient is an outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense while critical is a critical value, factor, etc.

salient

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
  • The article is not exhaustive, but it covers the salient points pretty well.
  • Prominent; conspicuous.
  • * Bancroft
  • He [Grenville] had neither salient traits, nor general comprehensiveness of mind.
  • (heraldry, usually of a quadruped) Depicted in a leaping posture.
  • a lion salient
  • Projecting outwards, pointing outwards.
  • a salient angle
  • (obsolete) Moving by leaps or springs; jumping.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • frogs and salient animals
  • (obsolete) Shooting out up; springing; projecting.
  • * Burke
  • He had in himself a salient , living spring of generous and manly action.

    Quotations

    {{timeline, 1800s=1878 1898, 1900s=1936}} * 1878 , , Book 2, chapter 5: *: With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy." * 1898 , Book2, chapter 2: *: The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. * 1936 , : *: Warning me that many of the street signs were down, the youth drew for my benefit a rough but ample and painstaking sketch map of the town's salient features.

    Antonyms

    * (prominent) obscure, trivial

    Derived terms

    * salient point

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (military) an outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense
  • Derived terms

    * salient pole

    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}}

    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.