The word for today is…
cardinal (noun, adjective):
noun
1: a high ecclesiastical official of the Roman Catholic Church who ranks next below the pope and is appointed by him to assist him as a member of the college of cardinals (see college sense 4)
2: cardinal number - usually used in plural
3a [from its color, resembling that of the cardinal's robes] : a crested finch (Cardinalis cardinalis of the family Cardinalidae) of the eastern U.S. and adjacent Canada, the southwestern U.S., and Mexico to Belize which has a black face and heavy red bill in both sexes and is nearly completely red in the male
b: any of several red-headed passerine birds (genus Paroaria of the family Thraupidae) of South America and the West Indies that are grayish to blackish above with white underparts
adjective
1: of basic importance
2: very serious or grave
Source : Merriam -Webster
Etymology : Mathematics, religion, ornithology—everything seems to hinge on cardinal. As a noun, cardinal has important uses in all three of the aforementioned realms of human inquiry; as an adjective cardinal describes things of basic or main importance, suggesting that outcomes turn or depend on them. Both adjective and noun trace back to the Latin adjective cardinalis, meaning “serving as a hinge,” and further to the noun cardo, meaning “hinge.” Since the 12th century, cardinal has been used as a noun referring to a fundamentally important clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, ranking only below the pope. (The clergyman's red robes gave the familiar North American songbird its name.) By the 1300s cardinal was also being used as the adjective we know today, to describe abstract things such as principles or rules (as opposed to, say, red wheelbarrows) upon which so much depends.
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