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🏔️ At the highest point 🎬 The climax
culminant

culminant

9.3
Reaching the highest or most important point in a process
  • adjective
  • /ˈkʌlmɪnənt/
translation icon : culminante
  • The festival reached its culminant moment when the fireworks lit up the night sky.

Examples

  • Michelangelo's Adam, God's own commensurate, is a culminant masterwork, long-intended, and of such exalted perfection and privilege that even angels break forth in envy.

    Academic text (1992)

  • Into an image of the town harbor, with buildings in the background and in the close and middle distance mostly water and air, the phantom ship makes a slow, inexorable, culminant entrance.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Her years of hard work culminated in a culminant performance that impressed the judges.

  • The project will have a culminant presentation at the annual conference next month.

Synonyms

ultimate
vsculminant
650 4.6

Last and most extreme in a series

is about reaching the highest stage rather than final position
climactic
vsculminant
15 6.0

Happening at the most exciting or important part of something

is about reaching the peak stage rather than just intensity

Antonyms

low
130 1.0

The point when something is at its smallest level

How Climactic

climactic
15 6.0
culminant
9.3
building
941 1.0
rising
2.6

Surface Forms

culminant positive

Morphology

culminant = culminate (transparent) = culmin + ant

Formed by the verb 'culminate' + the adjectival suffix '-ant'; the meaning 'reaching the highest point' follows a standard derivational pattern.

Etymology

Culminant comes from the Latin word culmen, which means 'summit' or 'top'. It is the same root as culminate and culmination, so it describes something that reaches the highest or most important stage.