culminate

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English

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Etymology

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Recorded since 1647, from Medieval Latin culminatus, the past participle of culminare (“to crown”), from Latin culmen (“peak, the highest point”), older form columen (“top, summit”), from Proto-Italic *kolamen, from a Proto-Indo-European base *kol-, *kelH- (“to project, rise; peak, summit, top”), whence also English hill and holm.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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culminate (third-person singular simple present culminates, present participle culminating, simple past and past participle culminated)

  1. (intransitive, astronomy) Of a heavenly body, to be at the highest point, reach its greatest altitude.
  2. (intransitive) To reach the (physical or figurative) summit, highest point, peak etc.
    Synonym: peak
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      As when his beams at noon / Culminate from the equator.
    • 1875, James Dwight Dana, Manual of Geology:
      The type of Cycads culminated in the Mesozoic
    • 1856, John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
      The house of Burgundy was rapidly culminating.
    • 2019 October, Tony Miles, Philip Sherratt, “EMR kicks off new era”, in Modern Railways, page 53:
      This culminates in a timetable change in December 2020, at which point EMR will introduce a sixth train each hour out of St Pancras.
  3. (intransitive, figuratively) To reach a climax; to come to a decisive point, especially an end or conclusion.
    Their messy breakup culminated in a restraining order.
    The class will culminate with a rigorous examination.
    • 2006 September 12, “President Bush’s Reality”, in New York Times‎[1]:
      Mr. Bush has been marking the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 with a series of speeches about terrorism that culminated with his televised address last night.
    • 2007, Stephen Keeling, Brice Minnigh, The Rough Guide to Taiwan (Rough Guides)‎[2], Penguin, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 510:
      Born in 1866 in Pingdong County in the south of the island, Lin became an outlaw after a brief stint as a Qing dynasty official, but after the Japanese invasion in 1895 he used his bandit experience to organize guerrilla resistance. This culminated in successful attacks on Donggang in 1897, and Chaojhou in 1898 with an army of two thousand that included Paiwan and Hakka troops as well as Taiwanese.
  4. (US, military, of an offensive, etc) To reach a point at which continued progress is not possible.
    • 2014 August 15, Major Kevin R. Kilbride, Military Assistance Advisory Group-Vietnam (1954-1963): The Battle Of Ap Bac, Pickle Partners Publishing, →ISBN:
      Approaching from the south on foot, elements of the CG battalion were first to come into contact and their attack culminated because the rate and accuracy of the VC small arms fire. The CG battalions attempted two assaults to penetrate […]
    • 2014 August 15, Major Bryan L. Woodcock, 91st Infantry In World War I--Analysis Of An AEF Division's Efforts To Achieve Battlefield Success [Illustrated Edition], Pickle Partners Publishing, →ISBN, page 33:
      As a result, the attack culminated the first day without additional artillery support. The towns of Eclisfontaine and Epinonville were not held on the first day as originally directed in the Corps plan.
  5. (transitive) To finalize, bring to a conclusion, form the climax of.
    • 1986 April 26, Tony Marcus Antuan Haywood, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 18:
      I would like to know if there are any true moralists who would like to correspond with someone who just instinctively feels there's something wrong somewhere in this unbenevolent world and wants to save it by culminating love and eradicating the captive emotions of the self (Ego).
    • 2010 September 7, “By the skin of her teeth”, in The Economist:
      The announcement by Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott in Canberra culminated more than a fortnight of intensive political horse-trading.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Adjective

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culminate (not comparable)

  1. (anatomy) Relating to the culmen

Further reading

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Italian

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Verb

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culminate

  1. inflection of culminare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Spanish

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Verb

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culminate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of culminar combined with te
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