combining form (after Gr. κριτικο-), = critically, critical and…: as in critico-historical, -poetical, -theological, etc., adjs.
1817. T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, xxxix. The members of this critico-poetical council.
1823. Parr, Wks., 1828, VII. 282. Some critico-theological matter on Deuteronomy.
1878. N. Amer. Rev., CXXVII. 162. Stronger than his critico-historical [conscience].
b. Also used as a base for nonce-words, as Criticometer, a measurer of critics or criticism. Criticophobia, fear or horror of critics.
1809. Athenæum, Feb., 120. The leading symptom of the Criticophobia is a nervous restlessness…. The patient has a most insatiable appetite for Reviews. Ibid. (1883), 20 Oct., 493/1. We thus obtain a scientific measurement of the thought of which they are correlative, and the criticometer is before us.
1836. [F. Mahony], in Fraser’s Mag., XIII. 338/2. A peculiar sensitiveness (technically called criticophobia) has possessed the mind of every great author.
1851. J. Hamilton, Royal Preacher, Pref. p. xii. But remembering how it has fared with the inventors of dangerous instruments, from the days of Lord Morton downwards, we have thought it better to leave our criticometer incomplete for the present.
