kriittinen

Kriittinen is a Finnish adjective meaning critical. It is used to describe careful judgment, evaluation, or the presence of urgency or risk, and in medical contexts to denote a life-threatening or unstable condition. The word stems from the same Latin root as English critical and Greek kritikos, having arrived in Finnish via Swedish and other European languages.

In general use, kriittinen denotes the capacity to assess evidence and arguments; common phrases include kriittinen arvio (critical assessment), kriittinen ajattelu (critical thinking), and kriittinen tutkimus (critical research). It can also describe a negative or demanding stance, as in kriittinen kommentointi.

In medical contexts, olla kriittisessä tilassa means being in a critical condition. Other specialized uses include kriittinen teoria (critical theory) in the humanities, and kriittinen piste or kriittinen massa in physics and chemistry, referring to a threshold where a process becomes self-sustaining. The adverb is kriittisesti; the comparative forms are kriittisempi and kriittisin.

Kriittinen is usually contrasted with synonyms that emphasize skepticism or judgement but not necessarily systematic evaluation; nuance differs from a casual skeptical attitude. The term is common in education, journalism, healthcare, and philosophy to indicate a standard of careful, evidence-based judgment.