Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Culminate |
CulminateVerb1. End, esp. to reach a final or climactic stage; "The meeting culminated in a tearful embrace". 2. Bring to a head or to the highest point; "Seurat culminated pointillism". 3. Reach the highest or most decisive point. 4. Of a celestial body: reach its highest altitude or the meridian. 5. Rise to, or form, a summit; "The helmet culminated in a crest". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "culminate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1657. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Culminate (3 syl.). Come to a crisis. The passage of a celestial body over the meridian at the upper transit is called its culmination. (Latin, culmen, the top.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonym: CulminateSynonym: climax (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Completion | Ripen, culminate; come to a head, come to a crisis; come to its end; die a natural death, die of old age; run its course, run one's race; touch the goal, reach the goal, attain the goal; reach; (arrive); get in the harvest. |
Height | Verb: be high; Adjective: tower, soar, command; hover, hover over, fly over;orbit, be in orbit; cap, culminate; overhang, hang over, impend, beetle, bestride, ride, mount; perch, surmount; cover; overtop; (be superior); stand on tiptoe. |
Summit | Verb: culminate, crown, top; overtop; (be superior to). |
Superiority | Verb: be superior; Adjective: exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance, outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, overbalance, overweigh, overmatch; top, o'ertop, cap, beat, cut out; beat hollow; outstrip; eclipse, throw into the shade, take the shine out of, outshine, put one's nose out of joint; have the upper hand, have the whip hand of, have the advantage; turn the scale, kick the beam; play first fiddle; (importance); preponderate, predominate, prevail; precede, take precedence, come first; come to a head, culminate; beat; all others, bear the palm; break the record; take the cake. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Culminate |
| English words defined with "culminate": Culminated, Culminating ♦ To come to a head. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "culminate": Astral ♦ diagenesis ♦ Peas ♦ Saw. (references) |
| Author | Quotation |
Bhagavad Gita | Action should culminate in wisdom. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | TSEs tend to progress rapidly and usually culminate in death over the course of a few months to a few years. (references) | |
Economic History | Australia | The Commission's use of its inquiry and monitoring powers culminate in a public report and, where necessary, recommendations to the Government. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Culminate" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 83.33% of the time. "Culminate" is used about 66 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 83.33% | 55 | 45,713 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 16.67% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Total | 100.00% | 66 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
culminate | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "culminate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | arrij kulmin (climax, flower, peak). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | تكبد (culmination, suffer, sufferance, sustain), تأوج يبلغ الذروة, بلغ الأوج. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | кулминирам, достигам най-високата си точка. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 达到高潮 (Culminated, Culminating). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | vrcholit, kulminovat (come to a head). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | kohota huippuunsa (reach its culmination), huipentua (reach its climax). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | culminer. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | kulminieren (reach its peak), gipfeln (tipping, topping). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | μεσουρανώ (be at the zenith), αποκορυφώνομαι (culminate in). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ל"'יע לפס'" (peak, top). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | tetõfokára hág, kulminál (to culminate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | mencapai puncak. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | culminare (acmes). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 남중하십시". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | cheet gys y vullagh (crest). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ulminatecay culminar (climax), atingir (accomplish, achieve, arrive, attain, catch, gain, get, get around, get hold of, hit, import, measure up to, overtake, reach, run, run across, run to, smite, strike, touch). (various references) culmina. (various references) достигать высшей точки. (various references) kulminirati (hit the ceiling). (various references) culminar (conclude, reach). (various references) kulminera. (various references) sonuçlanmak (be at an end, be concluded, come out, conclude, end, end up, eventuate, finish, go, issue, redound, turn out, work out), meridyen üzerinde bulunmak, doruğa ulaşmak (come to a head, peak). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "culminate": culminated, culminates. (additional references) | |
| |
"Culminate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: calminate, cluminate, Coulinats, cullminate, pulmonale. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "culminate" (pronounced ku"lmunā't) |
| 6 | -l m u n ā' t | fulminate. |
| 5 | -m u n ā' t | contaminate, decontaminate, denominate, determinate, discriminate, disseminate, dominate, eliminate, emanate, exterminate, germinate, illuminate, incriminate, inseminate, nominate, predominate, renominate, ruminate, terminate. |
| 4 | -u n ā' t | agglutinate, alienate, assassinate, carbonate, chlorinate, concatenate, decaffeinate, detonate, fascinate, halogenate, hydrogenate, hyphenate, impersonate, indoctrinate, insubordinate, isocyanate, italianate, marinate, originate, oxygenate, pollinate, procrastinate, rejuvenate, resonate, subordinate, titanate, urinate. |
| 3 | -n ā' t | designate, donate, hibernate, impregnate, reincarnate, stagnate. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-i-l-m-n-t-u" | |
-1 letter: neumatic. | |
-2 letters: ailment, aliment, alumine, alunite, calumet, cauline, climate, cutline, linecut, lunatic, melanic, metical, nematic, tunicae, tunicle. | |
-3 letters: acetin, acetum, aculei, acumen, aecium, almuce, alumin, alumni, amulet, anemic, atelic, auntie, camlet, cantle, catlin, centai, cental, centum, cinema, client, cuneal, eluant, enatic, entail, etamin, iceman, incult, inlace, inmate, lacune, lament, lancet, launce, lectin, lentic. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-i-l-m-n-t-u" | |
+1 letter: calumniate, culminated, culminates. | |
+2 letters: calumniated, calumniates, curtailment, multiagency, retinaculum. | |
+3 letters: antileukemic, counterclaim, curtailments, emasculating, emasculation, incommutable, incomputable, multichannel, multinuclear, multivalence, unacclimated. | |
+4 letters: communalities, conceptualism, counterclaims, documentalist, documentarily, emasculations, hermeneutical, intercommunal, malfunctioned, masculinities, multibranched, multichannels, multinucleate, multivalences, mutagenically, noncumulative, pneumatically, pneumatolytic, uncomplicated, unproblematic, unsymmetrical, vermiculation. | |
+5 letters: conceptualisms, counterclaimed, cumulativeness, documentalists, emulsification, intermolecular, intramolecular, macroevolution, metalinguistic, multinucleated, municipalities, semifunctional, ultramasculine, unacclimatized, unemphatically, vermiculations. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Quotations: Familiar | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.