climax

noun

Climax — the moment of greatest intensity, whether narrative or physical

Definition

The moment of most intense pleasure in sexual intercourse

In depth

Climax, in this specific sense, names the peak moment of sexual pleasure during intercourse, synonymous with orgasm. The word's far more common and widely used sense describes the most intense, decisive point in any narrative, dramatic, or escalating sequence of events, the high point toward which everything preceding it has been building.

Origin

The word descends from Greek klimax, a ladder or staircase, used rhetorically to describe a sequence of ideas arranged in ascending order of intensity. That image of ascending steps, each one higher than the last, underlies both the word's narrative sense, a story building toward its peak, and its more recent extension to the physiological peak of sexual experience.

Usage examples

"The novel's climax arrives without warning, three short chapters before its quiet, deliberately understated ending."

"Sex education materials sometimes use the term climax interchangeably with the more clinical orgasm."

"The negotiations reached their climax during a single, tense overnight session."

How to use it

Climax functions across two quite distinct registers, the narrative or dramatic sense, by far the more common in everyday writing, and the specific sexual sense; context generally makes the intended meaning unambiguous.