From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe critical listthe critical lista) the list of patients in a hospital who are so ill that they might dieon the critical list Two of the victims were still on the critical list Sunday night.take somebody off the critical list He was taken off the critical list and is now in a stable condition. b) if a system, plan, company etc is on the critical list, it is having severe problems and might fail soon → critical
Examples from the Corpus
the critical list• For some time after the trip I have to report that my game remained on the critical list.• She was on the critical list.• He was taken off the critical list last night, so we're very relieved.• A host of big names will be on the critical list when the wards reopen next Saturday. 