climax

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the decisive moment in a novel or play

   the deathbed scene is the climax of the play

2. 2
   noun

   the highest point of anything conceived of as growing or developing or unfolding

   the climax of the artist's career

3. 3
   verb

   to end, especially to reach a final or climactic stage

   The plot climaxed with a ten minute long action sequence.

4. 4
   noun

   A rhetorical device in which a series is arranged in ascending order.

   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,[…]

5. 5
   noun

   An instance of such an ascending series.

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

6. 6
   noun

   The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.

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

7. 7
   noun

   A culmination or acme: the last term in an ascending series, particularly

   In the accomplishment of this, they frequently reach the climax of absurdity.

8. 8
   noun

   A culmination or acme: the last term in an ascending series

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

Etymology

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