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criticize

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From critic +‎ -ize; first element from Ancient Greek κριτικός (kritikós, “of or for judging, able to discern”), from κρίσις (krísis, “decision, judgement”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈkɹɪtɪsaɪz/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Hyphenation: crit‧i‧cize

Verb

criticize (third-person singular simple present criticizes, present participle criticizing, simple past and past participle criticized) (ambitransitive)

  1. To find fault (with something).
    Synonyms: censure, pick at; see also Thesaurus:criticize
    Hyponyms: find fault, shoot down, run down, trash out, fustigate, drub, excoriate
    They criticized him for endangering people's lives.
    • 1988 August 13, Elizabeth Pincus, “1978 Revisited”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 5, page 7:
      Homophobia is based on criticizing any any sexual expression outside of procreational sex.
    • 1999 June 18, Rod Beaton, “Astros winning despite obstacles”, in USA Today:
      Since when is it a hanging offense to criticize someone who's not doing the job he's paid generously to do?
    • 2009, Eirik Vassenden, “Norway: The Province and its Metropolities”, in Peter Brooker, Andrew Thacker, editors, The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, volume 3, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 658:
      But far from being naïve Scandinavist ideologists, Blix et al. continually criticizes the utopian Scandinavists' talk of brotherhood and 'one culture', but also—and perhaps most importantly—made cultural separatism and provincialism, particularly in Norway, the object of crass satire.
    • 2010, Paul Hacker, Slovakia on the Road to Independence: An American Diplomat's Eyewitness Account, University Park, P.A.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN, page 52:
      Then Federal Minister of Environment Antonin Vavrougek had strongly criticized the entire project while working at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, taking a more limitationist view about the possibilities of generating electricity and a more alarmist view about the effect on drinking water supplies.
  2. To evaluate (something), assessing its merits and faults.
    Synonyms: censure, appraise, judge

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Further reading

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