different between climacteric vs perimenopause

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

peri- (“near”) +? menopause

Noun

perimenopause (uncountable)

1. The physiological stage that women approaching menopause go through when, due to hormonal changes, they progress from their usual pattern of menstruation through a phase of atypical menstruation, and finally cease menstruating. Perimenopause ends when a woman has not menstruated for a year.

Usage notes

• The term has been in use since at least 1931, when it was used in Joseph Bolivar De Lee and Jacob Pearl Greenhill's book, Obstetrics: Gynecology

Synonyms

• climacteric

Derived terms

• perimenopausal

Translations

References

• De Lee, Joseph Bolivar, and Greenhill, Jacob Pearl, 1931, Obstetrics: Gynecology. Year Book Publishers. ?ISBN
• Djordjevi?, Svetolik P., 2004, Dictionary of medicine: French-English with English-French glossary. Schreiber Publishers.
• Finn, Martha, and Bowyer, Lucy, 2005, Women's Health: A Core Curriculum. Elsevier: Australia. ?ISBN
• Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, Accessed 6 Dec 2009. >peri-
• Preidt, Robert, 2009, 'Study to Assess Hormone Therapy Before Menopause', ABC News, Mar. 23 2009. [3]
• Santoro, Nanette, and Goldstein, Steven R., (eds.), 2002, Textbook of perimenopausal gynecology. Informa Health Care. ?ISBN