1. (n.) Qualified to criticize, or pass judgment upon, literary or artistic productions.

2. (n.) Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a critical dissertation.

3. (n.) Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious.

4. (n.) Inclined to criticize or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

5. (n.) Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis of a subject.

6. (n.) Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis, turning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation.

Herculean abstruse accurate acute alarming allegorizing annotative appreciative arduous attentive bad basic belittling brutal captious carping caviling censorious charged choicy choosy clamorous clarifying climacteric close commentative commentatorial compelling complex conclusive conscientious consequential correct critic crucial crying cynical dangerous dangersome decisive delicate demanding demeaning demonstrative demythologizing deprecating deprecative deprecatory depreciating depreciative depreciatory desperate detailed determinative differential difficile difficult dire discerning discoursive discriminate discriminating discriminative disparaging disquisitional dissertational distinctive distinguishing editorial elucidative emergent enlightening essayistic essential euhemeristic exact exacting exegetic exemplificative exigent explaining explanatory explicative explicatory explosive expositive expositorial expository exquisite fastidious faultfinding fine finical finicking finicky formidable fraught with danger fussy glossarial grave hairsplitting hairy hard hard-earned hard-fought high-pressure high-priority humbling hypercritical illuminating illuminative illustrative imperative imperious important insistent instant intricate jawbreaking jeopardous judgemental judgmental judicative judicial judiciary judicious juridic juristic kairotic key knotted knotty laborious loaded lowering mean menacing meticulous minute momentous monographic nagging narrow nice niggling no picnic not easy on slippery ground on thin ice operose overcritical parlous particular penetrating perfectionistic periculous perilous pettifogging picky pivotal precarious precise precisianistic precisionistic pregnant pressing priggish prudish punctilious punctual puristic puritanic quibbling rationalistic rationalizing refined religious rigid rigorous rough rugged scholiastic scrupulous scrutinizing selective sensitive serious set with thorns severe significant slippery slippy spiny steep strenuous strict subtle tactful thorny threatening ticklish toilsome touch-and-go touchy tough trichoschistic tricky ugly ultracritical uncertain uphill urgent vital weighty wicked