climax
/ˈklaɪ.mæks/ noun C1- A rhetorical device in which a series is arranged in ascending order.
- The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.
- A culmination or acme: the last term in an ascending series, particularly
- The final term of a rhetorical climax.
- A relatively stable community of organisms, resulting from ecological succession, a successful adaptation to a relatively stable environment. · Near-synonyms: old-growth, mature ecosystem
- The culmination of sexual pleasure, an orgasm.
Plural climaxes
From the library
My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.
But what raised public astonishment to a climax, and set all conjecture at defiance, was the knowledge that the same stranger who had in the morning visited the Allées de Meilhan had been seen in the evening walking in the little village of the Catalans, and afterwards observed to enter a poor fisherman’s hut, and to pass more than an hour in inquiring after persons who had either been dead or gone away for more than fifteen or sixteen years.
I am, in your opinion, a Lara, a Manfred, a Lord Ruthven; then, just as I am arriving at the climax, you defeat your own end, and seek to make an ordinary man of me.
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