Also 6–7 cly-. [a. L. clīmax, a. Gr. κλῖμαξ ladder, (in Rhetoric) climax. The two uses 3 and 4 are due to popular ignorance and misuse of the learned word; they are not mentioned in Johnson, nor in Todd 1818.]
I. Properly.
1. Rhet. A figure in which a number of propositions or ideas are set forth so as to form a series in which each rises above the preceding in force or effectiveness of expression; gradation.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xix. (Arb.), 217. A figure which … by his Greeke and Latine originals … may be called the marching figure … it may aswell be called the clyming figure, for Clymax is as much to say as a ladder.
1657. J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., 94.
1681. Burthogge, Argument (1684), 10. This is the Clymax; if Believers, then Christ’s; if Christ’s, then Abraham’s Seed; if Abraham’s Seed, then Heirs according to the Promise.
1748. J. Mason, Elocut., 29. In a Climax, the Voice should always rise with it.
1828. Whately, Rhet., in Encycl. Metrop., 264/1. The well-known Climax of Cicero in the Oration against Verres.
1876. Gladstone, Homeric Synchr., 151. The whole passage as to the gifts of Agamemnon is in the nature of a climax.
† 2. gen. An ascending series or scale. Obs.
1781. J. Moore, View Soc. It. (1790), I. vi. 63. Expressions for the whole Climax of sensibility.
1793. Burke, Let. W. Windham, in Corr. (1844), IV. 135. The top of the climax of their wickedness.
II. Popularly.
3. The last or highest term of a rhetorical climax.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Cockayne, Wks. (Bohn), II. 65. When he adds epithets of praise, his climax is ‘so English.’
1865. R. W. Dale, Jewish Temp., xxiv. (1871), 275. This is the terrible close of the argument, the climax of the protracted appeal.
4. gen. The highest point of anything reached by gradual ascent; the culmination, height, acme, apex.
1789. Trifler, 448. No. XXXV. In the accomplishment of this, they frequently reach the climax of absurdity.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), v. Concl. Considering them [stage-coaches] as the very climax and pinnacle of locomotive griefs.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal. (1858), Pref. p. xxvi. Jerusalem is the climax of the long ascent.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers Flor., iii. 76–7. He was … at the very climax of his prosperity.
