climacterics

Noun

climacteric (plural climacterics)

1. A critical stage or decisive point; a turning point.
   • It is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics of the world.1829, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, […]...
2. A period in human life in which some great change is supposed to take place, calculated in different ways by different authorities (often identified as every seventh or ninth year).
3. The period of life that leads up to and follows the end of menstruation in women; the menopause.
   • Once women have traversed the turmoil of the climacteric years and reached the hormonal steady-state of the post-menopause, there is almost certainly no increase in the incidence of depression.1998, Roger N J Smith, John W. W. Studd, The Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy, page 8

See all 8 meanings of climacteric