Word.ws English Dictionary

anti-climax

anti-climax is the alternative spelling of anticlimax.

Meaning of anticlimax

Noun

anticlimax (countable and uncountable, plural anticlimaxes)

  1. A failed or reverse climax, particularly
    • Reed, Superba of yore, made a gallant effort to summon the Promethean fire that once burned within him when it was his “listening senates to command,” but his vaunted perorations proved anticlimaces and his oratory a flop.1935 September 18, “The Two Dromios, Jim and Jouette”, in Columbia Daily Tribune, volume XXXV, number 5, Columbia, Mo., page six, column 1
  2. An unsatisfying resolution to a narrative, usually owing to a deus ex machina or similarly trivial resolution of the main conflict.
  3. (rhetoric) An abrupt descent (either deliberate or unintentional) from the dignity of the idea which the speaker or writer appeared to be aiming for.

Forms of anti-climax

pluralanti-climaxes
plural (rare)anti-climaces

Questions about anti-climax

What is anti-climax the alternative spelling of?
Anti-climax is the alternative spelling of anticlimax.

Words near anti-climax in the dictionary

  1. anti-civil
  2. anti-civilisational
  3. anti-civilizational
  4. anti-clericalism
  5. anti-climaces
  6. anti-climax
  7. anti-climaxes
  8. anti-climb
  9. anti-clockwise
  10. anti-coalition
  11. anti-cockroach

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anti-climax (page history and authors); anticlimax (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “anti-climax.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anti-climax. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.