climacteric

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]

English

Noun

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.
2. The period of life that marks the end of the reproductive capacity of a woman and the beginning of the menopause; the change of life
3. A critical stage or decisive point; a crisis
4. Grand or Great climacteric, the sixty-third year of human life.

[H]e was in his grand climacterick, with a florid brow, and a step like youthful agility. Sigourney, Lydia. Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since, p. 66-67.

I should hardly yield my rigid fibers to be regenerated by them; nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental sounds of their barbarous metaphysics. Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France., p. 52.

References

Adjective

1. Of or pertaining to the climacteric
2. critical or crucial

See also

• menopausal

Climacteric can refer to:

• Climacteric (astrology)
• Climacteric (biology)

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