/ˈðæts ðə ˈkɹʌks əv ɪt/
English idiom, everyday. That’s the central point that everything else depends on.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use That’s the crux of it
?
Said when you’ve cut through the side issues and found the real point: “that’s the crux of it”, “the crux of the matter is money”. It sounds slightly bookish, so it suits meetings and essays as well as conversation. There’s only one crux in a given problem, so it nearly always takes “the”.
Also said that’s the crux of the matter, the crux of the problem
That’s the crux of it
in real sentences
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That’s the crux of the matter.
Tatoeba, sentence by CM, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Here’s the crux of the problem.
Tatoeba, sentence by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does That’s the crux of it
come from?
“Crux” is Latin for a cross, the wooden frame used for executions, and English Wiktionary says it came into English straight from Latin. The older English sense was a puzzle or hard problem, quoted from Thomas Sheridan in 1775, and climbers still call the hardest move of a route the crux (quoted from The Alpine Journal, 1907). Wiktionary doesn’t date the “central point” sense used in this phrase.
Mistakes learners make with That’s the crux of it
Pronouncing it like “crooks” in standard speech (Wiktionary gives /kɹʌks/, rhyming with “ducks”), or using “crux” for any minor point when it means the central one.
Other English idioms like That’s the crux of it
Spot a mistake in That’s the crux of it
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.