(from climacter, a ladder) signifies, among physicians, a critical year in a person's life.

According to some, this is every seventh year; but others admit only the years produced by multiplying seven by the odd numbers three, five, seven, and nine, to be climacterical. These years, they say, bring with them some remarkable change with respect to health, life, or fortune. The grand climacteric is the sixty-third year; but some, making two, add to this the eighty-first. The other remarkable climacterics are the seventh, twenty-first, thirty-fifth, forty-ninth, and fifty-sixth.