CLIMACTERIC, adjective Literally, noting a scale, progression, or gradation; appropriately, denoting a critical period of human life, or a certain number of years, at the end of which a great change is supposed to take place in the human constitution. [See the Noun.]

CLIMACTERIC, noun A critical period in human life, or a period in which some great change is supposed to take place in the human constitution. The critical periods are supposed by some persons to be the years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9; to which others add the 81st year. The 63d year is called the grand climacteric It has been supposed that these periods are attended with some remarkable change in respect o health, life or fortune.