cardinal point
Americannoun
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a crucial point in an argument, agenda, history, etc.; key fact or idea.
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any of the four main points of the compass: north, south, east, or west.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
In this now classic treatise on apocalyptic thinking in fiction, Kermode argues that it “is commonplace to talk about our historical situation as uniquely terrible and in a way privileged, a cardinal point in time.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2016
On Capitol Hill a cardinal point was made in implementing U.S. participation in UNO.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even then, said Administration aides, it would remain a cardinal point of U.S. policy to see Castro unseated, if only through economic and political pressures.
From Time Magazine Archive
Detached, confident, unflappable, the new Prime Minister promptly began to operate on the premise that a cardinal point of British foreign policy nowadays is the amount of influence it can exert over U.S. foreign policy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The doctrine here developed is the first cardinal point of Herbart’s system, and has obtained for it the name of “pluralistic realism.”
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 3 "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand" by Various
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.
