- a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
- any critical period.
- a year in which important changes in health, fortune, etc., are held by some theories to occur, as one's sixty-third year (grand climacteric ).
- the period of maximum respiration in a fruit, during which it becomes fully ripened.
- critical; crucial.
- a critical event or period
- another name for menopause
- the period in the life of a man corresponding to the menopause, chiefly characterized by diminished sexual activity
- the period during which certain fruits, such as apples, ripen, marked by a rise in the rate of respiration
- involving a crucial event or period
