Climacteric

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Climacteric \Cli*mac"ter*ic\ (? or ?; 277), a. [L.
     climactericus, Gr. ?. See {Climacter}.]
     Relating to a climacteric; critical.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  Climacteric \Cli*mac"ter*ic\, n.
     1. A period in human life in which some great change is
        supposed to take place in the constitution. The critical
        periods are thought by some to be the years produced by
        multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7, and 9; to
        which others add the 81st year.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Any critical period.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              It is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one
              of the grand climacterics of the world. --Southey.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  climacteric
       n 1: a period in a man's life corresponding to menopause
       2: the time in a woman's life in which the menstrual cycle ends
          [syn: {menopause}, {change of life}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  34 Moby Thesaurus words for "climacteric":
     change of life, charged, clutch, convergence of events, crisis,
     critical, critical juncture, critical point, crossroads, crucial,
     crucial period, crunch, decisive, desperate, dire, emergency,
     emergent, exigency, exigent, extremity, grand climacteric, hinge,
     kairotic, loaded, menopause, pass, pinch, pivotal, pregnant, push,
     rub, strait, turn, turning point