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climactericadj.n. Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin clīmactēricus. Etymology: < classical Latin clīmactēricus critical, climacteric (only attested in Pliny; recorded as a Greek word in Gellius) < Hellenistic Greek κλιμακτηρικός climacteric, relating to a critical point or period < κλιμακτήρ climacter n. + -ικός -ic suffix. With use as noun compare post-classical Latin climactericum (late 2nd or early 3rd cent. in Tertullian). In β. forms after French climatérique (1554 in Middle French designating a climacteric year, 1587 in extended use, 1762 as noun; < classical Latin clīmactēricus ). Compare also Spanish climatérico (first half of the 16th cent.), Italian climaterico (1608). Compare earlier climacterical adj., and compare also climactic adj.With climacteric year (see sense A. 1a) compare post-classical Latin annus climactericus (3rd cent.), Hellenistic Greek κλιμακτηρικὸν ἔτος . In sense A. 5 owing to confusion with climate n.1 or climatic adj.2, perhaps after French climatérique in similar use (1812). Stress on the penultimate syllable is found in most early pronouncing dictionaries and other authorities (as in many other words in -ic suffix), but stress on the antepenultimate is sometimes found from an early date in verse (compare e.g. quot. 1618 at sense A. 1a, but contrast e.g. quots. a1668 at sense A. 1a, a1678 at sense A. 1b). A. adj. I. Relating to a critical period. 1. the world > life > source or principle of life > age > [adjective] > period or stage of life the world > people > person > middle-aged person > [adjective] > climacteric > relating to climacteric 1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny I. vii. xlix. 182 The rule of the dangerous graduall yeares, called Clymactericke. 1618 R. Brathwait Descr. Death in sig. F Nor stands he much vpon our dangerous yeare... Oft..When we are most secure, then Hee's most neare, Where th' yeare clymactericke is his Iubile. a1668 W. Davenant Wits Epil. 223 in (1673) Being near The danger of his Climacterick year. 1762 E. Young ii. 35 Grand climacteric vanities The vainest will despise. 1881 (at cited word) These [epochs of life] were contemplated by the Greek physiologists as five, and termed climacterics or climacteric periods. 1954 F. H. Cramer 92/1 It may have been the very belief that this climacteric year would be fatal for Augustus which helped to stir the ambitions of Paulus. 1998 T. W. N. Parker i. 78 Professor Roche..points to a measure of numerological import in their arrangement dependent on the three Climacteric numbers. the world > action or operation > harm or detriment > danger > [adjective] > insecure > precarious a1633 Visct. Falkland (1680) 77 He found the Climacteric year of his Reign, before he did expect it: And made that unhappy Castle..the witness of his cruel Murder. a1678 A. Marvell Horatian Ode in (1681) 118 A Caesar he [sc. Cromwell] ere long to Gaul, To Italy an Hannibal, And to all States not free Shall Clymaterick be. 1819 R. Southey (1856) III. 311 This age is as climateric as that in which he lived. 1885 May 38/1 At that climacteric time the Pleiad of our elder poets was complete and shining. 1925 J. M. Murry vi. 78 Shortly afterwards he met Fanny Brawne. It was a climacteric moment, as it had been a climacteric year, in Keats' life. 1973 F. Kermode 65 They regard the war as a climacteric event, not only in their own subjective experience, but also in the spiritual history of the world. 1993 N. G. L. Hammond i. v. 67 The other Alexander-historians did not mark the Battle of Gaugamela as such a climacteric event. the world > people > person > middle-aged person > [adjective] > change of life 1766 E. Griffith Epil. 79 An old illiterate, feeble amoroso! What weakness can the human heart discover, More shameful, than a climacteric lover? 1825 17 Sept. 324/2 The body increases for a certain number of years, and then stands still; and there are times of decay, the climacteric age. 1839 22 June 490/1 Irregularities regarding menstruation, the irritation of suckling,..and the production of a hard tumour, which at the climacteric period was liable to take on malignant action, were all sources of the disease in women. 1876 R. Bartholow ii. 372 At the climacteric period in women. 1879 T. Bryant (ed. 3) II. xxvi. 246 The climacteric effacement of the breast. 1920 30 Oct. 924/2 The administration of thyroid had proved most satisfactory, especially in cases of neurasthenia and climacteric disorders of women. 1991 G. Greer 5 Every year adds new symptoms to climacteric syndrome and every year takes some off. We have lost involutional melancholy and gained autogenic dysregulation. 2004 11 151 Severe menopausal voice impairments, even without other climacteric symptoms, should be regarded as an indication for phoniatric examination. the world > action or operation > prosperity > advancement or progress > [adjective] > having made progress or advanced > to highest point 1789 E. Darwin 122 Where the passions are introduced,..the poet..has the power gradually to prepare the mind of his reader by previous climacteric circumstances. 1846 E. A. Poe in Apr. 165 Had I been able..to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple have purposely enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climacteric effect. 1883 J. Parker 258 It is the last link of a chain, it is the climacteric point. 1899 T. Watts-Dunton (1900) 3/2 The blackcap has a climacteric note, just before his song collapses and dies. 1966 D. Bagley (1980) ix. 247 The climacteric wave had left nasty evidence of destruction. 1990 R. C. Tucker iii. xiv. 359 By that time, the purge was entering upon its climacteric phase and Stalin's regime was surreptitiously becoming..a terroristic dictatorship. 1925 F. Kidd & C. West in iv. 31 Apples gathered at successive intervals..showed a progressive decrease in the time interval between gathering and the onset of the climacteric, and in the extent of the climacteric rise. 1949 H. W. von Loesecke iv. 75 During the climacteric phase there was a recovery in oxygen concentration. 1994 4 Dec. (Review Suppl.) 61/1 It doesn't ripen off the tree, being a climacteric fruit. 2001 53 467/1 Specimens were difficult to section due..to the climacteric deterioration of soft tissues in fully ripened fruits samples. II. Relating to climate. the world > the earth > weather and the atmosphere > weather > [adjective] > of or relating to climate 1837 7 429 No climateric fevers manifested themselves among the officers or crew during the time of their detention in the marshes. 1868 5 Dec. 736/2 Some countries enjoy perfect immunity from certain miasmatic epidemics, since such countries are subject to certain climateric conditions, or are distant from the countries where endemic diseases originate. 1876 10 132 Every slight change in color, arising from climacteric causes, has been seized upon to create new species. 1945 89 453/1 Dr. Williamson was even more interested in the remarkable improvement in the health of the colonists that had resulted from these climateric changes. B. n. 1. the world > time > a suitable time or opportunity > [noun] > critical or decisive moment 1633 W. Drummond 8 Our [sc. Scotland's] Lions Clymaterick [1656 Clymacterick] now is past, And crown'd with Bayes, he rampant's free at last. 1725 A. Pope 10 Sept. (1956) II. 318 At her advanced age every day is a climacteric. 1798 G. Wakefield 7 He may not have arrived at that grand climacteric of information. 1829 R. Southey I. 18 It is your lot..to live during one of the grand climacterics of the world. 1850 D. G. Mitchell II. 81 Among the noticeable things of the epoch, Fritz..is the climacteric of negation;—viz., a spring, that has been no spring. 1908 J. London xl. 289 All that he did know was that a climacteric in his life has been reached. 1945 E. Waugh 31 July (1976) vi. 630 He had reached a grave climacteric in his life and must now grow up or perish. 1976 A. Powell ii. vii. 78 The particular climacteric brought on by the years; the metamorphosis of boy to man. 1993 M. Kennedy (rev. ed.) xi. 75 At any rate the unprecedented success of the War Requiem marked a climacteric in Britten's career. the world > action or operation > prosperity > advancement or progress > [noun] > state of or advanced condition > highest point 1870 A. Austin 11 I take 1842 as the climacteric. No higher note has been struck by Mr. Tennyson since. 1897 E. A. Bartlett xiii. 294 The Persians at their climacteric were a much softer race than the indomitable Ottoman peasants. 1932 H. Crane 20 Mar. (1965) 404 Minor and subsidiary forms that augment the final climacteric [of the novel] quite a bit. 1959 M. Renault ii. 20 Between now and, say, eighteen, he would be at the climacteric of his looks, such as they were. 2007 (Nexis) 21 Sept. What happens today in France is irrelevant compared to what happened in Croke Park last Sunday, the climacteric of the sporting year. 2. the world > people > person > middle-aged person > [noun] > middle age > climacteric 1634 T. Herbert 158 This false Prophet (sore against his will) died in his sixtie third yeare (his great Clymatericke). 1645 J. Howell iii. xi. 64 It is a common..custom amongst the Spaniard, when he hath pasd his gran climacteric,..to make a voluntary resignation of Offices. 1697 J. Dryden Ded. Ld. Clifford in tr. Virgil sig. A1v I began this Work in my great Clymacterique. 1728 J. Morgan I. iv. 293 He lived to see one of those critical and reputed dangerous Periods of Human Life, Called the Gran Climacterics, dying in his sixty third Year. 1742 H. Fielding II. iv. vii. 217 When they arrive at this Period [sc. 15 years.], and have now passed their second Climateric. 1761 tr. C. Batteux II. ii. Art. iii. i. 362 Another in his grand climacteric amuses himself very seriously with cutting out figures in paper, or riding upon a hobby-horse. 1814 F. Burney III. vi. liv. 295 Such superannuated old geese, as those who had passed their grand climacteric, ought not to meddle with affairs of which they must have lost even the memory. 1845 S. Judd iii. 201 In which of the climacterics do I now exist? I am witheringly afflicted. 1867 O. W. Holmes xi. 138 He presently began asking certain questions about the grand climacteric, which eventful period of life he was fast approaching. 1979 K. Muir iv. 76 Elizabeth I—the mortal moon as opposed to the immortal Diana—survived her grand climacteric. 1995 S. E. Grace in M. Lowry I. 532 The number sixty-three is held to be fatal because that year in a person's life was viewed superstitiously as the grand climacteric of ancient medicine. the world > people > person > middle-aged person > [noun] > middle age > climacteric 1742 G. Cheyne iii. vii. 295 I have, in my Essay on Regimen, demonstrated that about this Time [sc. the age of fifty] the great Crise or Climacteric of Life generally happens in both Sexes. 1823 Ld. Byron xlvii. 76 Her climacteric teased her like her teens. 1897 A. D. L. Napier iv. 79 In the post-mature woman it is partly in the early senile changes that we must look for a solution of the climacteric. 1948 A. C. Kinsey et al. vii. 222 Sexual capacity..reaches its maximum in the thirties and forties (the ‘prime of life’), passes a peak somewhere in a period which is considered a male climacteric, and drops abruptly into the inactivity and complete impotence of old age. 1989 J. A. B. Collier & J. M. Longmore (ed. 2) i. 18 The climacteric refers to the years of change at the end of fertile life, and the menopause originally meant the date of the final period. 1996 R. Gosden ix. 262 Menopause and its symptoms, sometimes called the climacteric, had been regarded as a uniquely human trait. 1925 F. Kidd & C. West in iv. 30 The steady decline towards an approximately constant respiratory activity, which characterised the growth phase, gives place to a rise in activity, and respiration increases 50 per cent. to 150 per cent. This striking phenomenon, which appears to mark the transition from growth to senescence, is here termed the ‘climacteric’. 1949 H. W. von Loesecke iii. 51 In 1927 Gane presented evidence to show that ripe bananas produced ethylene, and stated that the gas was a normal product of metabolism during the climacteric when it acts as an autocatalyst. 2001 152 399/1 The hormone acts over a dispersed area and long time to ensure uniform synchronized reaction to a stimulus... An example might be the coordinated ripening of a fruit resulting from the stimulation of the climacteric by ethylene production. Compounds the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders associated with age > [noun] > of old age 1813 H. Halford in (Royal Coll. of Physicians) 4 316 (title) On the Climacteric Disease. 1824 (Otridge ed.) App. to Chron. 208/1 He was suffering from a general decay of strength—a sort of climacteric disease. 1985 9 432 In addition to occurring at different ages, the climacteric disease was believed to have a differential impact [in men and women]. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022). <  adj.n.1601 |
