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criticism

 - 3 dictionary results

crit⋅i⋅cism

[krit-uh-siz-uhm]
–noun
1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.
3. the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.
4. a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.
5. any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism.
6. investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, esp. Biblical ones: textual criticism.

Origin:
1600–10; critic + -ism


2. stricture, animadversion. 4. See review.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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crit·i·cism   (krĭt'ĭ-sĭz'əm)   
n.  
  1. The act of criticizing, especially adversely.

  2. A critical comment or judgment.

    1. The practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting, or evaluating literary or other artistic works.

    2. A critical article or essay; a critique.

    3. The investigation of the origin and history of literary documents; textual criticism.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Encyclopedia

criticism

the analysis and evaluation of works of art. More subtly, art criticism is often tied to theory; it is interpretive, involving the effort to understand a particular work of art from a theoretical perspective and to establish its significance in the history of art.

Learn more about criticism with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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