Adjective

(er)

Very bad or intense.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Donald Worster , title=A Drier and Hotter Future , volume=100, issue=1, page=70 , magazine= citation , passage=Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse. We may see many such [dust] storms in the decades ahead, along with species extinctions, radical disturbance of ecosystems, and intensified social conflict over land and water. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the epoch when humans have become a major geological and climatic force.}}

Strict or harsh.

Sober, plain in appearance, austere.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

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Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.

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*

*: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.

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*{{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.

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(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.

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Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.

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Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.

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