climacteric: Meaning and Definition of

cli•mac•ter•ic

Pronunciation: (klī-mak'tur-ik, klī"mak-ter'ik), [key]
— n.
  1. a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
  2. any critical period.
  3. a year in which important changes in health, fortune, etc., are held by some theories to occur, as one's sixty-third year
  4. the period of maximum respiration in a fruit, during which it becomes fully ripened.
—adj.
  1. critical; crucial.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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