criticism
noun
Simple meaning
The act of criticising.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kritihsihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɹɪtɪsɪzəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
The act of criticising; a critical judgment passed or expressed
countable
A critical observation or detailed examination and review.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of criticising; a critical judgment passed or expressed
Used this way, criticism is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use criticism
- “The senator received severe criticism from his opponent.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws.
In a critical manner.
Find fault with.
Find fault with.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The scientific study of biblical writings to determine their origin and meaning.
A written evaluation of a work of literature.
The study of existing manuscripts of the Scriptures in order to determine the original text.
Literary criticism based on close analysis of the text.
A petty disparagement.
Criticism of yourself.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.