Critic or critique?
critic is a noun meaning “A person who appraises the works of others”; critique is a noun meaning “The art of criticism”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) critic is about as common as critique.
What is the difference between critic and critique?
| critic | critique | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | A person who appraises the works of others A specialist in judging works of art | The art of criticism An essay in which another piece of work is criticized, reviewed, etc To review something; to criticize |
| Example | Following its publication, the novel received widespread acclaim from literary critics | Bob liked most of my presentation, but offered three minor critiques |
| Forms | critics | critiques |
| Pronunciation | /ˈkɹɪt.ɪk/ | /kɹɪˈtiːk/ /kɹɪˈtik/ |
| In writing | 8.9 times per million words | 6.8 times per million words |
Sources: critic and critique in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of critic and critique
critic
- 1
A person who appraises the works of others
Following its publication, the novel received widespread acclaim from literary critics
- 2
A specialist in judging works of art
- 3
One who criticizes; a person who finds fault
- 4
An opponent
critique
- 1
The art of criticism
- 2
To review something; to criticize
I want you to critique this new idea of mine
- 3
An essay in which another piece of work is criticized, reviewed, etc
- 4
A point made to criticize something
Bob liked most of my presentation, but offered three minor critiques
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, critic or critique?
critic appears 8.9 times per million words; critique 6.8 times per million words.
critic 8.9 times per million wordscritique 6.8 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search critic vs critique?
“critic vs critique” is searched about 720 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“critique vs critic”, “critic or critique”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.