climax

From Latin clīmax, from Ancient Greek κλῖμαξ (klîmax, “ladder, staircase, [rhetorical] climax”), from κλίνω (klínō, “I lean, slant”).

• enPR: klīʹ-măks IPA^(key): /ˈklaɪ.mæks/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -aɪmæks

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

1. (originally rhetoric) A rhetorical device in which a series is arranged in ascending order.
   • 1589 June, George Puttenham, chapter 19, in Edward Arber, editor, The Arte of English Poesie‎, volume 3, London, published 1869, page 217:

     Ye haue a figure which as well by his Greeke and Latine originals […] may be called the marching figure […] and goeth as it were by ſtrides or paces; it may aſwell by called the clyming figure, for Clymax is as much to ſay as a ladder, […]

   • 1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →OCLC, page 26:

     Climax, by steps advancing, onward goes
     Higher and still more high to an impassion'd close.

2. (obsolete) An instance of such an ascending series.
   • 1781, John Moore, chapter VI, in A view of society and manners in Italy, volume I, page 63:

     […] Expressions for the whole Climax of sensibility […]

   • 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, →OCLC, page 474:

     The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!

3. (narratology) The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.
   • 1969 March 31, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., chapter 1, in Slaughterhouse-Five […] (A Seymour Lawrence Book), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC, page 4:

     As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times.

4. (now often) 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, chapter IX, in English Traits, page 147:

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

   2. (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.

   3. (euphemistic) The culmination of sexual pleasure, an orgasm.
      • 1918, Marie Carmichael Stopes, Married love, section 50:

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

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

• (antonym(s) of “rhetorical device”): catacosmesis

• anticlimax
• climactic
• climax community
• monoclimax
• polyclimax

• climacteric

• anadiplosis

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 (in any sense).
   • 2012 May 31, Tasha Robinson, “Snow White And The Huntsman”, in AV Club‎:

     Huntsman starts out with a vision of Theron that’s specific, unique, and weighted in character, but it trends throughout toward generic fantasy tropes and black-and-white morality, and climaxes in a thoroughly familiar face-off.

   • 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.

   • 2023 May 30, Pamela Stephenson Connolly, “I have never been able to climax during sex. Is my masturbation style to blame?”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     I have never been able to climax during sex. Is my masturbation style to blame? [title]

2. To form the climax to; to be the climax of.
   • 1979 August 4, Walter Williams, “Swimmers Attacked”, in Gay Community News, page 3:

     A group of about 50 people, mostly young adults and teenagers, charged into a city park where gay people were having a swimming party on June 8. Gay people were attacked, climaxing a year in which this conservative Ohio city [Cincinnati] has become aware of its gay population.

• “climax”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “climax”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• IPA^(key): /kli.maks/

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climax m (uncountable)

1. climax (all senses)

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

• “climax”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Ancient Greek κλῖμαξ (klîmax, “ladder, staircase, [rhetorical] climax”), from κλίνω (klínō, “I lean, slant”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkliː.maks/, [ˈklʲiːmäks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkli.maks/, [ˈkliːmäks]

clīmax f (genitive clīmacis); third declension

1. (rhetoric) climax

Third-declension noun.

• “climax”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Borrowed from French climax.

climax n (plural climaxuri)

1. climax

• IPA^(key): /kliˈmaɡs/ [kliˈmaɣ̞s]
• Rhymes: -aɡs
• Syllabification: cli‧max

climax m (plural climax)

1. climax