Crux

How to spell crux

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crux

What does crux mean?

1. nounThe most important or decisive point of a problem, argument, or situation.

Crux in a sentence

• The crux of the dispute was who actually owned the land.

• Funding is the crux of the entire proposal, and without it nothing proceeds.

Where does crux come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes directly from the Latin crux, which literally meant 'cross', the wooden frame used in execution. Because hanging on a cross was an image of torment, Latin writers already used crux figuratively for a torture or a tormenting difficulty. English borrowed the word in the early 1700s, first in the sense of a puzzle or a thorny problem that one is 'crucified' by, and from there it narrowed to mean the central, decisive point on which a matter turns. The same Latin root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'crucial', 'crucify', and 'excruciating', all of which still carry that idea of the cross. Knowing that the word is simply Latin for 'cross' helps fix the slightly unusual ending, since the plural keeps the Latin shape in 'cruces' as well as the regular 'cruxes'.

How the word is built

• crux (Latin for 'cross', figuratively the decisive or central point)