Criterion Meaning
/kɹɪˈtɪəɹi.ən/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA standard, test, or requirement by which individual things or people may be compared and judged; a gauge.
Sentence Examples
What criterion did you use when you elected this essay as the winner?
Money is not a criterion of success.
The main criterion is value for money.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The main ____ for hiring was a degree in engineering.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
What ____ did you use when you elected this essay as the winner?
Word Origin & History
From New Latin criterion, from Ancient Greek κριτήριον (kritḗrion, “a test, a means of judging”), from κριτής (kritḗs, “judge”), from κρίνω (krínō, “to judge”); see critic.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Knowledge has come to her too soon—knowledge of evil, unqualified by the general charities which longer experience infallibly brings; but her age has lent its own freshness to this first great emotion; it becomes unconsciously a criterion, and the judgment is harsh, because the remembrance is bitter."
— 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 310:
"The Enlightment worldview, which considered the order of "Nature" as a basis and, at the same time, the subject of explorations of scientific natural sciences, has, at the same time, considered this order as a criterion of the artistically-aesthetic qualities of art. From an "ideological" point of view, it liberated art from its feudal religious and courtly servitude."
— 1986, Piotr Buczkowski, Andrzej Klawiter, editors, Theories of Ideology and Ideology of Theories, Rodopi, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 57:
"Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?"
— 2013 November 30, Paul Davis, “Letters: Say it as simply as possible”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8864:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The main ____ for hiring was a degree in engineering.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
What ____ did you use when you elected this essay as the winner?