Key
Material
Material adjective - Having great meaning or lasting effect.
Usage example: there's no material difference between the two designs for the skyscraper: one's as bad as the other
Key is a synonym for material in important topic. Sometimes you can use "Key" instead an adjective "Material", if it concerns topics such as weighty, relevant.
Mutual synonyms
How words are described
Both words in one sentence
- The limited edition Patlabor 2 The Movie box had two bonus books, one with storyboards and the other with material including character and mecha designs, interviews and key drawing samples.
Source: Concept Art Gallery -
The intendants get Nom Anor, the most heavily featured Vong character in the series, and are important more generally at key junctures (and some material indicates that the current Supreme Overlord was an intendant as well before taking the throne).
Source: Hufflepuff House -
In higher-level play, key squares may be forked as well, forcing the defender to choose between material disadvantage and positional disadvantage.
Source: Tabletop Game / Chess
Cite this Source
Material and Key. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 14, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/key/material
Key & Material. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/key/material>.
Material or Key. 2016. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/key/material.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "key" and "material" have occurred on timeline