criticism

American  

[krit-uh-siz-uhm] / ˈkrɪt əˌsɪz əm /

noun

• criticisms
  plural

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.

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criticism British  

/ 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 called: textual criticism.  the investigation of a particular text, with related material, in order to establish an authentic text

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Synonym Usage

See review.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• countercriticism
  noun
• overcriticism
  noun
• precriticism
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• criticisms
  plural

Etymology

Origin of criticism

First recorded in 1600–10; critic + -ism

Explanation

If you dye your hair bright blue, you're likely to get some criticism from people who just don't understand your personal style. When you're on the receiving end of criticism, you are being judged in a disapproving way. The noun criticism is most often used to describe negative commentary about something or someone, but it's just as correct to use criticism to mean "an examination or judgment." Critics who review books and movies consider their reviews to be criticism, whether they're positive or negative. So the criticism you receive doesn't have to be all about your faults; it can actually be a pleasant experience.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

criticism criticisms

The drug’s arduous journey through the FDA made it a poster child for the biotech industry’s criticism of the agency under former Commissioner Marty Makary.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

To outsiders, his relationship with Mourinho is characterised by a public criticism from the Portuguese in November 2016 around an unwillingness to play through an injury.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

Villarreal: Recent cast departures have obviously drawn some criticism.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

Responding to criticism that the new district lumps together communities with little in common, Hickey argued that the United States itself is "a mix of different people," encompassing urban neighborhoods, affluent suburbs and rural communities.

From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026

Vincent is eager for helpful criticism and thinks Van Rappard has made reasonable points about the execution, but the tone is so awful!

From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman

Whatever the case, Moreno appears to have determined that the questions and criticisms had become too loud to ignore.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

Yet for all his criticisms of Hayek, Skidelsky affirms that Hayek and Keynes were at one in their desire to preserve liberal civilization from the radicals of the left and right in their time.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Those criticisms weren’t only about style or his reluctance to comment on the economic and policy outlook.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

But she has taken such criticisms in stride, saying critics fail to see her hard work behind the scenes.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

Despite Burr’s criticisms, séances remained as popular as ever.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

Related Words

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