<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.</li><li>the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.</li><li>Synonyms: animadversion, stricture</li><li>the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.</li><li>a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.</li><li>any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism.</li><li>investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, especially Biblical ones: textual criticism.</li></ul>