crux
noun
a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point.
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crux
1 American
[kruhks]
/ krʌks /
Crux
2
American
[kruhks]
/ krʌks /
noun
Astronomy.
-
Crucis
genitive
crux
1
British
/ krʌks /
noun
-
a vital or decisive stage, point, etc (often in the phrase the crux of the matter )
-
a baffling problem or difficulty
-
mountaineering the most difficult and often decisive part of a climb or pitch
-
a rare word for cross
Crux
2
British
/ krʌks /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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!
Vocabulary lists containing crux
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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.
See Examples For:
Devlin says that forming Annie's character was about trying to understand why she decided to become an officer and "for that to be the crux of her story".
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
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 “almost” will be the crux of the storyline—without a towering, wooden, propane-fired “man” to burn one year, the festival can’t rise phoenix-like the next.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
Her lawyer pledges to keep fighting and a bipartisan bill aims to amend the parts of the tax code at the crux of the case.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026
Mr. Powell wanted me to work on the bills and the feet, since they were at crux points in the composition, he said.
From "Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt
"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
“Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” the pope said in an September interview with Crux.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025
The online Catholic magazine Crux noted that five popes — Pius V, Sixtus V, Clement XIII, Paul V and Clement IX — are interred in that basilica.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 14, 2023
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
Good wine and sound ale have their uses, To distinguish 'twixt which and abuses The clear-headed want; But illogical cant Will ne'er solve our worst social cruces.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, September 26, 1891 by Various
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
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
In "Memories and Portraits," Stevenson says: "A good serious play must be founded on one of the passionate cruces of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple."
From Writing for Vaudeville by Brett Page
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 and Psmith by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Faithful hold candles during a Via Crucis torchlight procession in Rome.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2024
It is the first time the pope will not preside at the "Via Crucis" service at Rome's Colosseum since he was elected in 2013.
From Reuters ● Apr. 7, 2023
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
Afterwards we went to meet our old friends, the Tayleurs of Buntingsdale, at the quaint old Raven Inn at Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded to Llangollen and Valle Crucis.
From Story of My Life, volumes 1-3 by Augustus J. C. Hare
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.
