different between climax vs rapture

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

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French rapture, from Latin rapt?ra, future active participle of rapi? (“snatch, carry off”)

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /??æpt??/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??apt??/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /???pt??/
• Rhymes: -æpt??(?)

Noun

rapture (countable and uncountable, plural raptures)

1. Extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement.
   • 2014, Paul Doyle, "Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter", The Guardian, 18 October 2014:

     Sunderland’s right-back, Santiago Vergini, inadvertently gave Southampton the lead by lashing the ball into his own net in the 12th minute, and that signalled the start of a barmy encounter that had home fans in raptures and Sunderland in tatters.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VII

     My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each of the countless times I have recalled those dear words, as it shall fill always until death has claimed me. I may never see her again; she may not know how I love her--she may question, she may doubt; but always true and steady, and warm with the fires of love my heart beats for the girl who said that night: "I love you beyond all conception."

2. In some forms of fundamentalist Protestant eschatology, the event when Jesus returns and gathers the souls of living believers. (Usually "the rapture.")
3. (obsolete) The act of kidnapping or abducting, especially the forceful carrying off of a woman.
4. (obsolete) Rape; ravishment; sexual violation.
5. (obsolete) The act of carrying, conveying, transporting or sweeping along by force of movement; the force of such movement; the fact of being carried along by such movement.
   • 1888 James Russell Lowell, Agassiz 6.1.21:

     With the rapture of great winds to blow / About earth's shaken coignes.

6. A spasm; a fit; a syncope; delirium.

Related terms

• rapt

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “rapture”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN

Verb

rapture (third-person singular simple present raptures, present participle rapturing, simple past and past participle raptured)

1. (dated, transitive) To cause to experience great happiness or excitement.
   • 2012, The Books They Gave Me: True Stories of Life, Love, and Lit, page 138:

     She raptured me in summer by giving me Fitzgerald's flawed and gorgeous masterpiece, the book that held his tortured heart.

2. (dated, intransitive) To experience great happiness or excitement.
3. (transitive) To take (someone) off the Earth and bring (them) to Heaven as part of the Rapture.
   • 2001, Allan Appel, Club Revelation: A Novel, page 320:

     "If she's raptured," Ellen said to them on the fifth night after Marylee's disappearance, as they sat on the roof of the building on their old beanbags and rusting garden furniture hauled up from the Museum, "if that's what happened to her, then […] "

   • 2007, Leon L. Combs, A Search For Reality page 46

     These fiction books told the story of some church people who were raptured but focused on the people who were not raptured.

   • 2010, Gerald Mizejewski, Jerimiah Asher, Charting the Supernatural Judgements of Planet Earth (page 233)

     The third person raptured by God into heaven was Elijah […]

   • 2011, Lexi George, Demon Hunting in Dixie ?ISBN

     “Praise the Lord, he's been raptured.” Good grief. “I don't think so, Mrs. Farris. 'Course, I'm Episcopalian, and I'm pretty sure we don't get raptured. But, Baptists get raptured, don't they?”

4. (rare, intransitive) To take part in the Rapture; to leave Earth and go to Heaven as part of the Rapture.
5. (uncommon) To state (something, transitive) or talk (intransitive) rapturously.
   • 1885, Edward Everett Hale, G.T.T.; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Pullman, page 158:

     And then the flowers! May-day indeed. Hester had been in Switzerland at the end of June, years on years before, and often had she raptured to Effie about the day's ride, in which they collected a hundred varieties of flowers, most of them new to them.

   • 2003, Jessica Peers, Asparagus Dreams, page 75:

     Pulling her leggings down over unshaven legs, she raptured "I'm dry!" to her audience.

   • 2003, Beverly Adam, Irish Magic, page 121:

     They're called angora with wonderfully long, soft fleece,” she raptured on about her first venture.

Anagrams

• parture

Latin

Participle

rapt?re

1. vocative masculine singular of rapt?rus