Climacteric

Quick meaning: Climacteric is an adjective meaning Pertaining to any of several supposedly critical years of a person's life.

Meaning

Pertaining to any of several supposedly critical years of a person's life.

More Meanings

1. Critical or crucial; decisive.
2. (medicine) Relating to a period of physiological change during middle age; especially, menopausal.
3. Climactic.
4. (botany) (of fruit) That continues to ripen after being harvested.
5. A critical stage or decisive point; a turning point.
6. (medicine) The period of life that leads up to and follows the end of menstruation in women; the menopause.
7. 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).

Example Sentences

The seeds of a climateric insurrection against the hypocrisy of cultural norms.

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.

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.

Word Forms

• climacterics

Synonyms for climacteric

Depending on context, synonyms include menopause.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include menopause, climatal, climateric, critical, climatory, climatologic.

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