critique
Americannoun
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an article or essay criticizing a literary or other work; detailed evaluation; review.
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a criticism or critical comment on some problem, subject, etc.
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the art or practice of criticism.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a critical essay or commentary, esp on artistic work
-
the act or art of criticizing
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of critique
First recorded in 1695–1705; from French, from Greek kritikḗ “the art of criticism,” noun use of feminine of kritikós “critical, skilled in judging”; replacing critic
Explanation
As a verb, critique means to review or examine something critically. As a noun, a critique is that review or examination, like an art essay or a book report. The French version of this word is spelled the same (meaning "the art of criticism") and came from the Greek kritike tekhne ("the critical art"). This shouldn't come as a great surprise, since it was the Greeks who gave us such masters of the critique as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Today, through book reports, argument papers, and critical essays, we carry on the tradition of the critique, which is one of the most important skills we'll ever learn in school.
Vocabulary lists containing critique
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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The SAT: Language of the Test, List 3
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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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.
But the consensus is split on this big screen screentime critique.
From Slate • Jul. 3, 2026
It’s a romance, a swashbuckler, a melodrama, a relatively light-handed critique of capitalism, demagoguery and the malleability of the crowd.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 30, 2026
Straight Talk: In an interview, the Microsoft CEO says we can’t let the AI giants eat the economy and offers a blistering critique of the AI power balance.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 28, 2026
“An unfortunate consequence” of the “Wedges” paper, wrote climate scientist Ken Caldeira, New York University physics professor Marty Hoffert and others in a 2013 critique, “was to make the solution seem easy.”
From Salon • Jun. 26, 2026
Despite Wallace’s critique, despite the fact that other astronomers with telescopes and observing sites as good as Lowell’s could find no sign of the fabled canals, Lowell’s vision of Mars gained popular acceptance.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
