crucial

Pronunciation: /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/

The English word “crucial” has 3 meanings listed here.

adjective

Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital.
Cruciform or cruciate; cross-shaped.
Very good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music.

Etymology

1706, from French crucial, a medical term for ligaments of the knee (which cross each other), from Latin crux, crucis (“cross”) (English crux), from the Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, to bend”). The meaning “decisive, critical” is extended from a logical term, Instantias Crucis, adopted by Francis Bacon in his influential Novum Organum (1620); the notion is of cross fingerboard signposts…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “crucial” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.