precritical

American

[pree-krit-i-kuhl] / priˈkrɪt ɪ kəl /

adjective

Medicine/Medical.

anteceding a crisis.

precritical British

/ priːˈkrɪtɪkəl /

adjective

of, relating to, or occurring during the period preceding a crisis or a critical state or condition

a precritical phase of a disease

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of precritical

First recorded in 1880–85; pre- + critical

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:

precritical

Father Richard McBrien, chairman of the theology department at the University of Notre Dame, dismisses the idea of a personal archdemon as "premodern and precritical."

From Time Magazine Archive

Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture.

From The Collectors by Frank Jewett Mather

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023