climax
A rhetorical device in which a series is arranged in ascending order.
Other meanings
The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.
A culmination or acme: the last term in an ascending series, particularly
Related words
- anticlimax
- sexual climax
- climaxless
- disclimax
- microclimax
- miniclimax
- nonclimax
- plagioclimax
- postclimax
- preclimax
- climactic
- climax community
Word history
From Ancient Greek "κλῖμαξ" (ladder, staircase, [rhetorical] climax).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “climax” on Wiktionary, by its contributors, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.