crucial

crucial (ˈkruːʃəl)

—*adj*
1.	involving a final or supremely important decision or event; decisive; critical
2.	informal very important
3.	slang very good

[C18: from French, from Latin cruxcross]

'crucially

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

crucial

1706, from Fr. crucial, a medical term for ligaments of the knee (which cross each other), from L. crux (gen. crucis) "cross." The meaning "decisive, critical" is extended from a logical term, Instantias Crucis, adopted by Francis Bacon (1620); the notion is of cross fingerboard signposts at forking

roads, thus a requirement to choose.

Example sentences

Seeds are crucial to fruit formation because they typically emit hormone

signals that bring the fruit into being.

The promotion-and-tenure committee had easily approved his third-year

review-allegedly the crucial hurdle on the path to tenure.

His artful images relay the crucial connection between humanity and nature.

The difficulty is that crucial parts of these surface molecules are hidden from

the attacking antibodies.

Remove ads like these. Upgrade now!

brink climacteric crux decisive decretory determinative

Matching Quote

"Poets ... are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one."

-Hannah Arendt