criticism

[ krit-uh-siz-uhm ]

noun

1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.

   Synonyms: animadversion, stricture

3. the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.
4. a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.
5. any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.:

   historical criticism; literary criticism.

6. investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, especially Biblical ones:

   textual criticism.

criticism

/ ˈkrɪtɪˌsɪzəm /

noun

1. the act or an instance of making an unfavourable or severe judgment, comment, etc
2. the analysis or evaluation of a work of art, literature, etc
3. the occupation of a critic
4. a work that sets out to evaluate or analyse
5. Also calledtextual criticism the investigation of a particular text, with related material, in order to establish an authentic text

Other Words From

• counter·criti·cism noun
• over·criti·cism noun
• pre·criti·cism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of criticism¹

First recorded in 1600–10; critic + -ism

Synonym Study

See review.

Related Words

• assessment
• comment
• critique
• judgment
• opinion
• review