Criticals

Criticals is a plural term used in several domains to refer to events, conditions, or items judged to be of high significance or urgency. The word derives from critical, meaning decisive or of high importance, and its plural form appears as a shorthand in specific communities or industries.

In gaming and game culture, criticals commonly denote critical hits, attacks that deal enhanced damage or trigger special effects. The likelihood of landing a critical hit is often described as a critical chance, and the exact effect can vary by game, ranging from doubled damage to added status effects or unique abilities.

In healthcare, the phrase criticals is informal shorthand for patients in critical condition, typically treated in intensive care units. While not a formal diagnostic category, the term can appear in clinical chatter or triage discussions to distinguish the most acutely at-risk patients from those in stable or improving states.

In engineering, safety, and reliability domains, criticals may refer to critical components, failure modes, or tasks whose malfunction would have severe consequences. Here the concept of criticality helps priority-setting and risk assessment, guiding maintenance, testing, and resource allocation.

Other uses of critical or criticality terms exist in statistics, physics, and philosophy, but the plural noun criticals is less standardized and often context-dependent. Because meanings vary by field, readers should interpret criticals within its specific domain and rely on accompanying definitions or project documentation to avoid confusion.