Literally, noting a scale, progression, or gradation; appropriately, denoting a critical period of human life, or a certain number of years, at the end of which a great change is supposed to take place in the human constitution. [See the Noun.]
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
A critical period in human life, or a period in which some great change is supposed to take place in the human constitution. The critical periods are supposed by some persons to be the years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9; to which others add the 81st year. The 63d year is called the grand climacteric It has been supposed that these periods are attended with some remarkable change in respect o health, life or fortune.
Relating to a climacteric; critical.
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. Any critical period.
See Climacteric.
Age Roget’s Thesaurus §128
N. age, oldness, old age, advanced age, golden years, senility, senescence, years, anility, gray hairs, climacteric, grand climacteric, declining years, decrepitude, hoary age, caducity, superannuation, second childhood, second childishness, dotage, vale of years, decline of life, "sear and yellow leaf", threescore years and ten, green old age, ripe age, longevity, time of life, seniority, eldership, elders, firstling, doyen, father, primogeniture, geriatrics, nostology|
Adj. aged, old, elderly, geriatric, senile, matronly, anile|, in years, ripe, mellow, run to seed, declining, waning, past one's prime, gray, gray-headed, hoar, hoary, venerable, time-worn, antiquated, passe, effete, decrepit, superannuated, advanced in life, advanced in years, stricken in years, wrinkled, marked with the crow's foot, having one foot in the grave, doting, like the last of pea time, older, elder, eldest, senior, firstborn, turned of, years old, of a certain age, no chicken, old as methuselah, ancestral, patriarchal, &c. (ancient) 124, gerontic
Phr. "give me a staff of honor for my age", bis pueri senes, peu de gens savent elre vieux, plenus annis abiit plenus honoribus, "old age is creeping on apace", "slow-consuming age", "the hoary head is a crown of glory", "the silver livery of advised age", to grow old gracefully, "to vanish in the chinks that time has made"
No Bible verses found for "climacteric".