QuestionsAnswered.net

What's Your Question?

The Best Dictionaries for Kids

The big dictionaries strive to compile every word that can be found so there is a complete record of a language. The Oxford English Dictionary , published in the late 19th century, set the framework for dictionaries around the world. Smaller-sized dictionaries include words that are likely to be looked up.

Characteristics of a Good Dictionary for Children

Good children’s dictionaries include complete and easy to understand definitions along with helpful illustrations or photos. Visuals combined with words make it easier to grasp even the most difficult concepts. The average person uses only a small fraction of available words and phrases. A comprehensive dictionary that includes a complete list of commonly used words can help your child improve his grammar and increase his knowledge of the English language as well as improve his spelling.

How to Choose the Best Dictionary for Your Child

Be sure you choose a recent edition when you buy a dictionary for your child since the English language has become more fluid in recent years. Resist the urge to buy a dictionary that your child can use throughout his school years. Instead, buy an age appropriate dictionary that is specifically designed for your child’s age group. Dictionaries come in a range of formats, from coffee table style books to pocket style books that are easy to carry. Therefore, a dictionary is available to suit your child’s particular needs.

Dictionaries for Children

ThoughtCo, an online reference site that focuses on expert-created education content, recommends several dictionaries. The Merriam-Webster Children’s Dictionary , with over 35,000 words and phrases, is an ideal resource for children in elementary school. Many dictionaries come with special appendices, pictures and more. Thorndike Barnhart Children’s Dictionary also includes over 35,000 words and phrases along with a 14-page reference section. An older child may benefit from a combination dictionary and thesaurus.

Specialty Dictionaries

Every dictionary is compiled with a specific group of users in mind. Your child will be motivated to use the dictionary that you purchase for him if it has a theme that he finds interesting. For example, the Roald Dahl Dictionary features Dahl’s inimitable vocabulary along with Quentin Blake’s well-known illustrations. The Oxford First Dictionary , featuring computer-generated images, may interest your child if he enjoys computer games. The Multicultural Children´s Visual Dictionary comes in four languages.

Online Dictionaries

Online Dictionaries for children are numerous. Visual Dictionary Online explores 15 major themes while The Internet Picture Dictionary connects words with images. Kids.Wordsmyth is a full-featured dictionary that includes photographs, animations, synonyms and pronunciations. Little Explorers Picture Dictionary, offered by EnchantedLearning.com, allows for additional research of a particular topic or word. The multilingual picture dictionary provides links to child-friendly sites, making it simple to surf the web. Fact Monster also offers many resources in addition to an online dictionary.

MORE FROM QUESTIONSANSWERED.NET

oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  • Dictionaries home
  • American English
  • Collocations
  • German-English
  • Grammar home
  • Practical English Usage
  • Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta)
  • Word Lists home
  • My Word Lists
  • Recent additions
  • Resources home
  • Text Checker

Definition of critical thinking noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

critical thinking

  • The school encourages critical thinking and problem-solving.
  • The book shows you how to apply critical thinking to your studies.
  • Critical thinking skills enable students to evaluate information.

Questions about grammar and vocabulary?

Find the answers with Practical English Usage online, your indispensable guide to problems in English.

Nearby words

Words and phrases

Personal account.

  • Access or purchase personal subscriptions
  • Get our newsletter
  • Save searches
  • Set display preferences

Institutional access

Sign in with library card

Sign in with username / password

Recommend to your librarian

Institutional account management

Sign in as administrator on Oxford Academic

critical thinking noun

  • Show all quotations

What does the noun critical thinking mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun critical thinking . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

How common is the noun critical thinking ?

Where does the noun critical thinking come from.

Earliest known use

The earliest known use of the noun critical thinking is in the 1810s.

OED's earliest evidence for critical thinking is from 1815, in Critical Review .

critical thinking is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: critical adj. , thinking n.

Nearby entries

  • critical potential, n. 1916–
  • critical pressure, n. 1878–
  • critical race theory, n. 1989–
  • critical rationalism, n. 1945–
  • critical region, n. 1933–
  • critical size, n. 1940–
  • critical state, n. 1871–
  • critical temperature, n. 1870–
  • critical theorist, n. 1753–
  • critical theory, n. 1799–
  • critical thinking, n. 1815–
  • critical volume, n. 1878–
  • criticaster, n. 1669–
  • criticasterism, n. 1805–
  • criticastry, n. 1887–
  • criticiasis, n. 1874
  • criticism, n. 1606–
  • criticist, n. & adj. 1838–
  • criticizable, adj. 1751–
  • criticize, v. 1621–
  • criticizer, n. a1680–

Meaning & use

Thank you for visiting Oxford English Dictionary

To continue reading, please sign in below or purchase a subscription

Entry history for critical thinking, n.

Originally published as part of the entry for critical, adj. & n.

critical thinking, n. was first published in June 2018

oed.com is a living text, updated every three months. Modifications may include:

  • further revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
  • new senses, phrases, and quotations.

Please submit your feedback for critical thinking, n.

Please include your email address if you are happy to be contacted about your feedback. OUP will not use this email address for any other purpose.

Citation details

Factsheet for critical thinking, n., browse entry.

Cambridge Dictionary

  • Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of critical thinking in English

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

  • adjudication
  • have the measure of someone/something idiom
  • interpretable
  • interpretive
  • reinspection
  • reinterpret
  • reinterpretation
  • reinvestigate
  • reinvestigation
  • the acid test

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Examples of critical thinking

Translations of critical thinking.

Get a quick, free translation!

{{randomImageQuizHook.quizId}}

Word of the Day

to put on formal clothes for a special occasion

Have you come far? Chatting to someone you don’t know (2)

Have you come far? Chatting to someone you don’t know (2)

oxford dictionary online critical thinking

Learn more with +Plus

  • Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
  • Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
  • Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
  • Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
  • English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
  • English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
  • English–Dutch Dutch–English
  • English–French French–English
  • English–German German–English
  • English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
  • English–Italian Italian–English
  • English–Japanese Japanese–English
  • English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
  • English–Polish Polish–English
  • English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
  • English–Spanish Spanish–English
  • Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
  • English    Noun
  • Translations
  • All translations

Add critical thinking to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

  • Subscriber Services
  • For Authors
  • Publications
  • Archaeology
  • Art & Architecture
  • Bilingual dictionaries
  • Classical studies
  • Encyclopedias
  • English Dictionaries and Thesauri
  • Language reference
  • Linguistics
  • Media studies
  • Medicine and health
  • Names studies
  • Performing arts
  • Science and technology
  • Social sciences
  • Society and culture
  • Overview Pages
  • Subject Reference
  • English Dictionaries
  • Bilingual Dictionaries

Recently viewed (0)

  • Save Search

A Dictionary of Critical Theory

  • Find at OUP.com
  • Google Preview

A Dictionary of Critical Theory (1 ed.)  

Ian buchanan.

This is the most wide-ranging and up-to-date dictionary of critical theory available, covering the whole range of critical theory, including the Frankfurt school, cultural materialism, gender studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, historical materialism, and sociopolitical critical theory. Entries clearly explain even the most complex of theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism. There are also biographies of important figures in the field, with feature entries for those who have heavily influenced areas of the discipline.

Covering all aspects of the subject from globalization and race studies, to queer theory and feminism, this multidisciplinary A-Z is essential for students of literary and cultural studies and is useful for anyone studying a humanity subject requiring a knowledge of theory.

Bibliographic Information

Affiliations are at time of print publication..

Ian Buchanan is Director of the Institute for Social Transformation Research at the University of Wollongong. He has authored or edited over a dozen books as well as special issues of journals, as well as founding the journal Deleuze Studies .

  • All Contents

Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs , and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us .

aboriginality

Absent cause, abstractionism, active and reactive, actor-network theory, actual and virtual, adorno, theodor, affective fallacy, agamben, giorgio, alienation-effect, alternate modernity, front matter, publishing information, general links for this work, introduction.

  • Oxford University Press

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice ).

date: 05 November 2023

  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal Notice
  • Accessibility
  • [66.249.64.20|162.248.224.4]
  • 162.248.224.4

Character limit 500 /500

  • Pop culture
  • Writing tips
  • Daily Crossword
  • Word Puzzle
  • Word Finder
  • Word of the Day
  • Synonym of the Day
  • Word of the Year
  • Language stories
  • All featured
  • Gender and sexuality
  • All pop culture
  • Grammar Coach ™
  • Writing hub
  • Grammar essentials
  • Commonly confused
  • All writing tips
  • critical thinking

disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence: The questions are intended to develop your critical thinking.

Origin of critical thinking

Words nearby critical thinking.

  • critical race theory
  • critical ratio
  • critical region
  • critical state
  • critical temperature
  • critical value
  • critical volume
  • criticaster

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use critical thinking in a sentence

Being a pilot requires a particular reliance on critical thinking , preparing for a variety of situations and keeping calm and mission-focused, all of which are incredible skills to bring into a new business.

For one, our education system can equip people with critical thinking skills, media literacy and an understanding of the forces at work when people make truth judgments.

They need to be well-prepared and informed and capable of critical thinking .

It’s not possible to entirely shut out what they’re saying, but it’s best to do your own critical thinking .

What I worry about is that people aren’t learning critical thinking skills.

In court, labelers could argue that they were just trying to give students choices, while encouraging critical thinking .

For those in the movement, this means cultivating an attachment to Israel while fostering critical thinking .

A little debate and critical thinking are good for everyone.

But his timid foray into critical thinking brings swift and severe punishment.

The shift is most evident in our schools, where critical thinking has replaced rote learning as the central goal of education.

Ordinary propaganda, for instance, is quite ineffective on people trained in critical thinking .

So far as we conduct each of these processes in the light of the other, we get valid discovery or verified critical thinking .

oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  • Learn How to Use the Library
  • Providers & Employees
  • Research Help
  • All Research Guides

English Research

  • Catalogs & Databases

What is Critical Thinking?

7 steps to critical thinking, books in the collection.

  • Synthesizing Information
  • Entering the Conversation
  • APA Style (7th ed.) This link opens in a new window

The Oxford English Dictionary defines critical thinking as "the objective, systematic, and rational analysis and evaluation of factual evidence in order to form a judgement on a subject, issue, etc."

Put simply, critical thinking is the ability to recognize and examine information to understand the evidence, arguments, and perspectives present in that information. Critical thinking means seeking answers and asking questions.

  • TED-Ed Can You Solve This Riddle? (playlist) Try out some of the classic riddles in this playlist from TED Ed. Each video established the riddle with narration and animation. Use your critical thinking skills to solve the riddles!

The following seven steps, developed by Kraus et al., are meant to illustrate the process of critical thinking. While true critical thinking may not follow these steps as written, they can serve as a guide or framework for individuals working on improving their critical thinking skills.

  • What am I being asked to believe or accept?
  • What evidence is available to support the claim?
  • What alternative ways are there to interpret the evidence?
  • Rate the evidence/alternatives on 0-10 scale based on validity/strength.
  • What assumptions or biases came up when doing the above steps? (e.g., using intuition/emotion, authority, or personal experience rather than science)
  • What additional evidence would help us evaluate the alternatives?
  • What conclusions are most reasonable or likely?

Kraus, S., Sears, S. R., & Burke, B. L. (2013). Is truthiness enough? Classroom activities for encouraging evidence-based critical thinking. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 13 (2), 83-93.

These ebooks are available in the NEOLINK catalog.

Cover Art

These books are available on-site in the library's circulating collection.

Cover Art

  • << Previous: Catalogs & Databases
  • Next: Synthesizing Information >>
  • Last Updated: Apr 19, 2023 2:50 PM
  • URL: https://aultman.libguides.com/english

Aultman Health Sciences Library

Aultman Education Center, C2-230, 2600 Sixth St SW, Canton, OH 44710  |  330-363-5000   |  [email protected]

Go to the homepage

Example sentences critical thinking

Definition of 'critical' critical.

IPA Pronunciation Guide

Definition of 'thinking' thinking

Cobuild collocations critical thinking, browse alphabetically critical thinking.

  • critical temperature
  • critical theory
  • critical thinker
  • critical thinking
  • critical value
  • critical volume
  • critical writing
  • All ENGLISH words that begin with 'C'

Quick word challenge

Quiz Review

Score: 0 / 5

Tile

Wordle Helper

Tile

Scrabble Tools

  • To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

critical thinking

Definition of critical thinking

Examples of critical thinking in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'critical thinking.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1815, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Dictionary Entries Near critical thinking

critical temperature

critical value

Cite this Entry

“Critical thinking.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/critical%20thinking. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries.  Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Games & Quizzes

Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

Something went wrong. Wait a moment and try again.

IMAGES

  1. Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking by Colin Swatridge

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  2. Oxford Series

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  3. A Dictionary of Critical Theory (Oxford Quick Reference)

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  4. Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  5. Critical Thinking Oxford

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

  6. Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking

    oxford dictionary online critical thinking

VIDEO

  1. Oxford Dictionary for English Literature Students #oxforddictionary #dictionary #englishdictionary

  2. Critical Thinking Training Conducted By Pentus Training and Consultancy

  3. Oxford Academic Summer School Courses

  4. Oxford Advanced Lerner's Dictionary #shorts

  5. Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Oxford Classical Dictionary

  6. Oxford Advanced Lerner's Dictionary review 10th edition English dictionary

COMMENTS

  1. The Best Dictionaries for Kids

    The big dictionaries strive to compile every word that can be found so there is a complete record of a language. The Oxford English Dictionary, published in the late 19th century, set the framework for dictionaries around the world.

  2. When Do We Use Critical Thinking in Everyday Life?

    When an individual can determine whether a problem is under control or beyond his control and can recognize his limitations regarding money, time and power, then he is using critical thinking in everyday life.

  3. What Are Some Examples of Critical Thinking?

    Examples of critical thinking include observing, analyzing, discriminating and predicting. Critical thinkers solve problems through observation, data gathering, and reasoning. Other examples of critical thinking are applying standards and s...

  4. critical-thinking noun

    Definition of critical-thinking noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes

  5. critical thinking, n. meanings, etymology and more

    critical thinking, n. meanings, etymology, pronunciation and more in the Oxford English Dictionary.

  6. CRITICAL THINKING

    To say the signs of critical thinking, writing, or reading mean that students are assured of political and material empowerment is to exaggerate matters. From

  7. Dictionary of Critical Theory

    The Oxford Biblical Studies Online and Oxford Islamic Studies Online have retired.

  8. CRITICAL THINKING Definition & Usage Examples

    Critical thinking definition: disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence. See examples of CRITICAL THINKING used in

  9. Critical Thinking Skills

    The Oxford English Dictionary defines critical thinking as "the objective, systematic, and rational analysis and evaluation of factual evidence in order to

  10. CRITICAL THINKING definition and meaning

    CRITICAL THINKING definition: A critical time, factor , or situation is extremely important . [...] | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples.

  11. Critical thinking Definition & Meaning

    : the act or practice of thinking critically (as by applying reason and questioning assumptions) in order to solve problems, evaluate

  12. What is the critical thinking Oxford dictionary?

    Only meaning I have given. critical thinking noun /ˌkrɪtɪkl ˈθɪŋkɪŋ/ /ˌkrɪtɪkl ˈθɪŋkɪŋ/[uncountable] 1. ​the process of analysing information in order to

  13. Critical Thinking and Reasoning

    ... Online Products & Publishing · Dictionaries & Reference · OUP Worldwide · Oxford University. Customer Service Dept. Should you have a question or problem

  14. The Power of Critical Thinking

    reasoning, evidence and authority, visual reasoning, and obstacles to critical