Criticising

How to spell criticising

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce criticising

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does criticising mean?

1. verbExpressing disapproval of someone or something by pointing out faults or flaws.

Criticising in a sentence

• The manager spent the whole meeting criticising the new budget plan.

• She felt the reviewers were criticising her work unfairly.

Where does criticising come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word grows from the Greek kritikos, meaning 'able to judge or discern', which was built on krites, a 'judge', and ultimately on the verb krinein, meaning 'to separate, sift, or decide'. The same root gave English a whole family of related words, including 'critic', 'critical', 'criterion', and even 'crisis', all carrying the idea of reaching a decisive judgement. Latin borrowed the term as criticus, and from there the noun 'critic' entered English in the late 1500s. The verb 'criticise' was formed on that noun during the 1600s, originally meaning simply 'to judge or analyse' before it acquired its more common modern sense of finding fault. In British and Canadian usage the verb keeps the -ise ending, so the present participle is spelled criticising, where the soft middle sound is written with an 's' rather than the American 'z', which is the main spelling trap to remember.

How the word is built

• critic (from Greek kritikos: able to judge)
• -ise (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle)

British and American spelling

Criticising is the British spelling. American English spells it criticizing.