English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin clīmacēs, plural of clīmax.

Noun edit

climaces

  1. (rare) plural of climax
    • 1851 July, “The Architecture of the Heavens. By J. P. Nichol, []. 1850.”, in The Eclectic Review, volume II, London: Ward and Co., [], page 56:
      He must penetrate to the idea of the astronomer and the artist, and then he will be in a condition to criticise the manner in which it is set forth—a necessity which is equally applicable to the eloquent climaces of the writer, and to the highly ideal designs of the painter.
    • 1857, J[ames] P[hilippo] Mursell, A Zealous Ministry, Its Character and Its Worth. An Address, Delivered June 24th, 1857, in Broadmead Chapel, to the Students of the Baptist College, Bristol., London: J. Heaton & Son, [], page 16:
      The flowers of his rhetoric as the garlands of Eden; and the climaces of his eloquence as the echoes of the skies.
    • 1875 Auust, T. W. Cameron, “Notes on Carlyle”, in William Francis Ainsworth, editor, The New Monthly Magazine, volume IX, number XLIII, London: E W. Allen, [], pages 202–203:
      Carlyle is the climax (or, at least, one of the climaces) of that Germanic influence which first appeared in general literature about the time of Scott, and which, indeed, Scott himself helped on, just about a year after Carlyle was born, by his translations of “Burger’s Ballads,” and Göthe’s “Götz von Berlichengen.”
    • 1883, Helen Zimmern, “Irish and Moral Tales”, in John H. Ingram, editor, Maria Edgeworth (Eminent Women Series), London: W. H. Allen & Co., [], page 58:
      Her [Maria Edgeworth’s] Moral Tales are a series of climaces of instances, an enlargement of [Louis-Claude Chéron de] La Bruyère’s idea, a method allowable to creations of fancy, but not quite justifiable when applied to the probable.
    • 1889 May 1, “Recently Published. [] The Prayer-Book Psalter [] by Sir Herbert Oakeley, []. Extracts from Reviews.”, in The Musical Times and Singing-Class Circular, volume XXX, number 555, London, New York, N.Y.: Novello, Ewer and Co., page 309, column 2:
      Few things in choral praise can be imagined more thrilling than the ‘roar’ of a congregation, here in unison, especially occurring immediately after the more subdued harmony by the choir of those verses of penitential character, which, with musicianlike craft, the psalmist always makes to precede and to lead up to the four fine climaces of the words quoted.
    • 1923, Ecology, pages 172, 173, 324, and 434:
      The distinction here made between climatic and physiographic climaces is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, but the underlying idea is one of great practical as well as theoretical importance. [] In other words, physiographic climaces of this description represent the climatic climax. [] The climatic climax is attained on the better sites, but on much of the area coniferous forests occur, which represent physiographic climaces due to local edaphic or topographic factors. [] Elsewhere, owing to the effect of factors which preclude the development of the regional type, the succession of vegetation may be halted lower down in the successional series and physiographic climaces result.
    • 1926, Terence Gray, “The Tyranny of Words (3)”, in Dance-Drama: Experiments in the Art of the Theatre, Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Limited, pages 25–26:
      Yet if the intense emotions of these crises, which must inevitably form the climaces of the plays in which they arise, are left inadequately expressed the audience is not able to experience the most vital revelations which the situations have in them to reveal and, consequently, the plays fail in their fullest possibilities.
    • 1947, MIOC, pages 37–38 and 592:
      In the serclimax and quasiclimax there are some species common to climaces, but they show great differences in analytic characteristics. In accordance with this the transformations suffered by the habitats must have altered the present climate somewhat, as the devastation which affects the analytic composition of the vegetation demonstrates a modification of the microclimates of the association which , in their turn must have influenced the differentation found between the climaces and the cycle of climax, vegetation and soil. [] As a rule the abundance of species in the subclimaces and climaces in Virginia is much greater than in those of the same type at Ilheus. [] The fossils found show that the species have not undergone great change but the climate altered enough to bring about a deep change in the structure of climaces.
    • 1957 March, E. J. A. Nuffield, “Four Operas”, in The Canon: Australian Music Journal, part two, page 265, column 1:
      In these storm scenes Mozart reveals himself as a composer of considerable dramatic power; they remind of the great orchestral climaces of later operas.
    • 2007, “Meyerbeer’s Way to Mastership: Employment of the Modern Leading-Motive before Wagner’s Birth (1926)”, in Robert Ignatius Letellier, editor, Giacomo Meyerbeer: A Reader, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, translation of original by Edgar Istel, →ISBN, page 277:
      At present we shall take up only the dramatic climaces of the work.
    • 2009, Waldemar Zangaro, Marco A. Nogueira, Galdino Andrade, “Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Used as Biofertilizers in Revegetation Programmes”, in Mahendra Rai, editor, Advances in Fungal Biotechnology, New Delhi, Bangalore, Karnataka: [] I.K. International Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., →ISBN, pages 352 and 357:
      Among the successional groups, 16 species were pioneers, 20 early secondary, 29 late secondary and 15 climaces. According to the response to AM fungi and the period necessary to reach the maximum development in the greenhouse, the plantlets of pioneer species were kept in the greenhouse for 16.8 weeks, the early secondary for 19.3 weeks, the late secondary for 21.2 weeks and the climaces for 25.8 weeks. [] All late secondary, except Campomanesia xanthocarpa, Tabebuia roseo-alba and Vitex montevidensis and all climaces species showed low responsiveness to AM fungi, even grown in chemically poor soil. [] When non-inoculated with AM fungi, the pioneer and early secondary species showed lower P, Ca and K concentration in leaves than the species from the late secondary and climaces species (Table 12.2). [] For the late secondary and climaces species there was no increase of nutrient concentration due to mycorrhiza. [] [“Successional groups”:] Climax [“Uninoculated”:] 0.15 aA [“Inocolated”:] 0.15 aA [“NCR”:] 1.0
    • 2012, Clive Alfred Spinage, “Fire Part II: Effects and Ecology”, in African Ecology - Benchmarks and Historical Perspectives, Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, section 3 (Conclusion), pages 335 and 377:
      In the sub-tropical forest zones there is an enormously decreased area of climax forest and wide regions have been converted to sub-climaces of seral grassland, wooded grassland, and evergreen shrub. [] Vast areas have been cleared by felling followed by burning, resulting after abandonment of the cultivated areas in thicket sub-climaces. [] Bourne considered the majority of climaces edaphic.

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