Jump To:

• crux
  crux

  noun

  a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point.
• Crux
  Crux

  noun

  Southern Cross.

crux

¹ American  

[kruhks] / krʌks /

noun

• cruxes,
  plural
• cruces
  plural

1. a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point.

   The crux of the trial was his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

   Synonyms:

   gist, core, heart, essence

2. a cross.

3. something that torments by its puzzling nature; a perplexing difficulty.

---

Crux ² American  

[kruhks] / krʌks /

noun

Astronomy.

• Crucis
  genitive

1. Southern Cross.

---

crux ¹ British  

/ krʌks /

noun

1. a vital or decisive stage, point, etc (often in the phrase the crux of the matter )

2. a baffling problem or difficulty

3. mountaineering the most difficult and often decisive part of a climb or pitch

4. a rare word for cross

---

Crux ² British  

/ krʌks /

noun

1. the more formal name for the Southern Cross

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cruces
  plural
• cruxes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of crux¹

1635–45; < Latin: stake, scaffold, or cross used in executions, torment; figurative senses perhaps < New Latin crux ( interpretum ) (commentators') torment, a difficult passage in a text; cf. crucial

Origin of Crux²

< Latin: a cross

Explanation

The essential point or problem is the crux. People are always trying to get to the crux of a matter or the crux of a problem, while others try to distract them. The noun crux is often followed by the phrases "of the matter" or "of the problem." When people are trying to identify the crux of something, it's like they want to get to the heart of it. They want to peel back the layers and find out what something is really all about or what is causing the problem. No more beating around the bush!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

crux Crux cruces cruxes Crucis

Last year, with her second LP “The Art of Loving,” Dean became the latest British woman to earn global fame at the crux of old-soul balladry and modern pop panache.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026

The crux lies in what counts as a financial adviser.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026

But unlike most modern trauma-horror films, a character’s suffering isn’t the crux of the story, but rather its entry point.

From Salon ● May 30, 2026

The crux of Brockman's testimony so far has been that Musk was aware of plans to shift OpenAI to be more of a traditional for-profit business.

From BBC ● May 5, 2026

I’ve taken my last vitals—120/80—and I’m standing at the crux of the hall by the nurses’ office, looking at the double doors I came in five days ago.

From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini

"In Latin, this constellation is called Crux, the Southern Cross, which points toward the southernmost region of the planet, where Kank was discovered."

From Science Daily ● May 29, 2026

Venture-capital firms are a “unique animal,” said Lev Mass, a general partner at Crux.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026

“We have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question,” he told Crux.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2025

While his first two albums were DIY affairs, recorded in a couple of days and self-released, his latest, The Crux, was created in New York's fabled Electric Lady studios.

From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2025

The Current was quick, and she didn’t have the double gun decks and the heavy artillery of the Crux.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

These sorts of cruces always are to 224 me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder if D.B. stuck there for a week or two.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) by Andrew Lang

The sterility of hybrids has been always considered one of the great cruces in connection with any theory of Evolution. 

From Selections from Previous Works and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals by Samuel Butler

Then after a page or two we come to the chief cruces of Moore's pathetic and of his comic manner, "The Last Rose of Summer," "The Young May Moon," and "The Minstrel Boy."

From Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 by George Saintsbury

This is one of the textual cruces of the play.

From The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar by Ebenezer Charlton Black

The comparative accuracy of this outline, so incredibly good as mere guesswork, must remain one of the chief cruces of Mediæval geography.

From The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea Vol. II by Gomes Eannes de Zurara

One of the cruxes of sleep hygiene is consistency.

From Salon ● Mar. 2, 2022

That’s why Rana’s lawsuit cruxes on Amazon’s algorithms, apps, and devices that Amazon uses to micromanage its workers.

From The Verge ● Nov. 14, 2021

The students’ argument in court, which is a part of the Xiaocheng Cup Public Welfare Litigation Competition, cruxes on this premise.

From The Verge ● Oct. 27, 2021

Payne flits between the two cataclysms, first with slow precision, and then, as the cruxes approach, back and forth cinematically, the borders showing some slippage.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 12, 2019

We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term—­all speeches and doubtful readings, and cruxes and things—­beastly hard! 

From Mike by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

Faithful hold candles during a Via Crucis torchlight procession in Rome.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2024

The annual Via Crucis event on Good Friday at the Colosseum consists of the 14 Stations of the Cross, stages between the condemnation of Jesus to death and his burial.

From Reuters ● Apr. 13, 2022

In the Vatican, Pope Francis presided over the Via Crucis or Way of the Cross ceremony in a barren St. Peter’s Square.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 6, 2021

In 2017, Pueblo Sin Fronteras took the Via Crucis a step further, organizing several hundred migrants to travel from near the Guatemala border all the way to the United States.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2018

The Abbey of Valle Crucis was dissolved in the year 1535, and is said to have been the first of the Welsh monasteries which underwent the doom of abolition.

From The "Ladies of Llangollen" as Sketched by Many Hands; with Notices of Other Objects of Interest in "That Sweetest of Vales" by John Hicklin

Related Words

• bottom line
• core
• essence
• gist
• nub