Word.ws English Dictionary

criticise

criticise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of criticize.

Meaning of criticize

Verb

criticize (third-person singular simple present criticizes, present participle criticizing, simple past and past participle criticized)

  1. (British, English, Oxford, US, ambitransitive, transitive) To find fault (with something).
    • They criticized him for endangering people's lives.
    Synonyms:
    censure, pick at
  2. (British, English, Oxford, US, ambitransitive, transitive) To evaluate (something), assessing its merits and faults.
    Synonyms:
    censure, appraise, judge

Forms of criticise

third-person singular presentcriticises
present participlecriticising
past participlecriticised
pastcriticised

Origin of criticise

From critic + -ise, see criticize.

Words formed from criticise

Questions about criticise

What is criticise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
Criticise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of criticize.

Words near criticise in the dictionary

  1. criticasters
  2. criticastry
  3. criticess
  4. criticesses
  5. criticisable
  6. criticise
  7. criticised
  8. criticiser
  9. criticisers
  10. criticises
  11. criticising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: criticise (page history and authors); criticize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “criticise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/criticise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.