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• 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.

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Crux ² American  

[kruhks] / krʌks /

noun

Astronomy.

• Crucis
  genitive

1. Southern Cross.

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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

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Crux ² British  

/ krʌks /

noun

1. the more formal name for the Southern Cross

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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

Navigation of the strategic strait is at the crux of the latest hostilities.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 28, 2026

That role—dubbed “the person in the loop”—is at the crux of fears about combat automation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 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

We thought we were running away from the grown-ups, and now we are the grown-ups: this is the crux of it.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

"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

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 business has been run by the same family for the past four decades, according to property marketing agent Barry Crux.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2023

“Pah. Even the Scourge of the East would think twice about engaging both the Crux and the Current. He might even take out the Beauty and rid us of the competition.”

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

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

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

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

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

His ferociously annotated versions of the Pentateuch and of the Psalms chaperone the Hebrew-less reader through many dense cruxes.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 4, 2016

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

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 name Mundus Novus got placed upon several maps as an equivalent for Terra Sanctæ Crucis, or what we call Brazil; 4.

From Amerigo Vespucci by Frederick Albion Ober

Related Words

• bottom line
• core
• essence
• gist
• nub