cardinal point
Americannoun
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a crucial point in an argument, agenda, history, etc.; key fact or idea.
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any of the four main points of the compass: north, south, east, or west.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In this now classic treatise on apocalyptic thinking in fiction, Kermode argues that it “is commonplace to talk about our historical situation as uniquely terrible and in a way privileged, a cardinal point in time.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2016
It practically abandoned all pretence on the part of the Great Powers to protect the Christians in Turkey, cardinal point of Gladstone's eastern policy.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even then, said Administration aides, it would remain a cardinal point of U.S. policy to see Castro unseated, if only through economic and political pressures.
From Time Magazine Archive
Macmillan was more than willing to agree on the mutual benefits of scientific cooperation; such a sharing has long been a cardinal point of British foreign policy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The city has four gates, one toward each cardinal point of the compass.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 120, October, 1867. by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
