different between climacteric vs climax

English

Etymology

From Latin cl?mact?ricus, from Koine Greek ????????????? (klimakt?rikós, “scale, progression, gradation”), from ????????? (klimakt?r).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kl??mak?t???k/, /kl???makt???k/

Adjective

climacteric (comparative more climacteric, superlative most climacteric)

1. Pertaining to any of several supposedly critical years of a person's life. [from 17th c.]
   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 596:

     Closely parallel to the belief in unlucky days was the notion of climacteric years, those periodic dates in a man's life which were potential turning-points in his health and fortune.

2. Critical or crucial; decisive. [from 17th c.]
3. (medicine) Relating to a period of physiological change during middle age; especially, menopausal. [from 18th c.]
4. Climactic. [from 18th c.]

Derived terms

• postclimacteric
• preclimacteric

Translations

Noun

climacteric (plural climacterics)

1. A critical stage or decisive point; a turning point. [from 17th c.]
   • 1829, Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society

     It is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics of the world.

   • Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since, p. 66-67.

     [H]e was in his grand climacterick, with a florid brow, and a step like youthful agility. Sigourney, Lydia.

   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

     I should hardly yield my rigid fibers to be regenerated by them; nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental sounds of their barbarous metaphysics.

2. A period in human life in which some great change is supposed to take place, calculated in different ways by different authorities (often identified as every seventh or ninth year). [from 17th c.]
3. (medicine) The period of life that leads up to and follows the end of menstruation in women; the menopause. [from 18th c.]
   • 1998, Smith, Roger N J, and Studd, John W. W., The Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy, p. 8:

     Once women have traversed the turmoil of the climacteric years and reached the hormonal steady-state of the post-menopause, there is almost certainly no increase in the incidence of depression.

Derived terms

• grand climacteric, great climacteric

See also

• menopausal

References

• climacteric in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

English

Etymology

From Latin cl?max, from Ancient Greek ?????? (klîmax, “ladder, staircase, [rhetorical] climax”), from ????? (klín?, “I lean, slant”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kl??-m?ks IPA^(key): /?kla?mæks/
• Rhymes: -a?mæks

Noun

climax (countable and uncountable, plural climaxes or (rare) climaces)

1. (originally rhetoric) A rhetorical device in which a series is arranged in ascending order.
2. (obsolete) An instance of such an ascending series.
   • 1781, John Moore, A view of society and manners in Italy, Vol. I, Ch. vi, p. 63:

     ...Expressions for the whole Climax of sensibility...
3. (narratology) The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.
4. (now commonly) A culmination or acme: the last term in an ascending series, particularly:
   • 1789, Trifler, 448, No. XXXV:

     In the accomplishment of this, they frequently reach the climax of absurdity.

   1. (rhetoric, imprecise) The final term of a rhetorical climax.
      • 1856, Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits, Ch. ix, p. 147:

        When he adds epithets of praise, his climax is ‘so English’.

   3. (ecology) The culmination of ecological development, whereby species are in equilibrium with their environment.
      • 1915 July 17, Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory:

        The succession of associations leading to a climax represents the process of adjustment to the conditions of stress, and the climax represents a condition of relative equilibrium. Climax associations... are the resultants of certain climatic, geological... conditions.

   4. The culmination of sexual pleasure, an orgasm.
      • 1918, Marie Carmichael Stopes, Married love, 50:

        In many cases the man's climax comes so swiftly that the woman's reactions are not nearly ready.

Synonyms

• (rhetorical device): incrementum; (imprecise): auxesis, catacosmesis
• (culmination): See Thesaurus:apex

Antonyms

• (rhetorical device): catacosmesis

Derived terms

• climactic
• climax community
• monoclimax
• polyclimax

Related terms

• climacteric

Translations

See also

• anadiplosis

Verb

climax (third-person singular simple present climaxes, present participle climaxing, simple past and past participle climaxed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To reach or bring to a climax.
   • 2018, Craig Snyder, The Boxers of Youngstown Ohio

     Frank had two bouts in October of 1954, losing them both, and then climaxed his career with a 6-round decision victory over Mickey Warner on December 1, 1954.
2. (intransitive) To orgasm; to reach orgasm.

Further reading

• climax in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• climax in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kli.maks/

Noun

climax m (uncountable)

1. climax (all senses)

Derived terms

• anteclimax
• climacique
• conclimax
• paraclimax
• peniclimax
• subclimax

Romanian

Etymology

From French climax.

Noun

climax n (plural climaxuri)

1. climax

Declension

Spanish

Noun

climax m (plural climax)

1. climax