Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pivotal   /pˈɪvətəl/   Listen
Pivotal

adjective
1.
Being of crucial importance.  Synonym: polar.  "Its pivotal location has also exposed it to periodic invasions" , "The polar events of this study" , "A polar principal"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Pivotal" Quotes from Famous Books



... a problem treated by Ibsen, after a somewhat different fashion, in 'Gengangere' (Ghosts). This play has occasioned much heated discussion, for its theme is of the widest interest, besides being pivotal as regards Bjoernson's sociological views. 'Over AEvne' is a curiously wrought and delicate treatment of religious mysticism, fascinating to read, but not very definite in outcome. 'Kongen' is probably the most remarkable, all things considered, of this series of plays, and Bjoernson ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... Minnesota, and must always remain such without doubt, though it does not occupy a central geographical position, still it is the practical centre of the commonwealth, made such by the enterprise of her people in extending the system of railways in all directions, with this point as a pivotal centre. There are already seven important roads[A] radiating from this city, either completed or in rapid course of construction, giving at the present time a total of about seven hundred miles of finished road, over which ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... general military rule, so that all one lives on are the rumors that never get into the papers; but Peking is stupendous. Here the rumors simply fly, and the corridors of the old Wagons-Lits Hotel seems to be the pivotal spot of the whirlwind. Sooner or later every one in Peking seems to drop into the hotel on some pretext or other, as if it were a club, and the lounge is so thick with news and rumor and gossip that you can lean up against them and not fall ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... test came again at a banquet. It was at York. Let us picture this pivotal scene of his life ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... bridge will not soon be forgotten by engineers and men of science. But, while the technical features of the undertaking are familiar to a few, the general public knows little about how the work was actually done; and since the building of the bridge was the pivotal point in Murray O'Neil's career, it may be well to describe in some detail its various phases—the steps which led up to that day when the Salmon burst her bonds and put the result of all his planning and labor to the ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... 'the public.' Have you any notion how it shifts the point of view to wake under new constellations? I advise any who's been in love with a woman under Cassiopeia to go and think about her under the Southern Cross. ... It's the only way to tell the pivotal truths from the others. ... I didn't believe in my theory any less—there was my triumph and my vindication! It held out, resisted, measured itself with the stars. But I didn't care a snap of my finger whether anybody else believed in it, or even knew it had been formulated. It escaped out ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... ability to seize the pivotal point on which to turn theory into practice wrought so surely and so swiftly as to be inexplicable to anyone unaware of the fever that drove him on. His first face of ore had cut blind, but he only put two more drills to work, and in the early spring one of the drills struck ore ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com