culmination

American  

[kuhl-muh-nay-shuhn] / ˌkʌl məˈneɪ ʃən /

noun

• culminations
  plural

1. the act or fact of culminating.

2. that in which anything culminates; the culminating position or stage; highest point; acme.

   Synonyms:

   summit, peak, zenith, climax

3. Astronomy. the position of a celestial body when it is on the meridian.

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culmination British  

/ ˌkʌlmɪˈneɪʃən /

noun

1. the final, highest, or decisive point

2. the act of culminating

3. astronomy the highest or lowest altitude attained by a heavenly body as it crosses the meridian

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonculmination
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• culminations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of culmination

1625–35; < Medieval Latin culminātiōn-, stem of culminātiō; see culminate, -ion

Explanation

The culmination is the end point or final stage of something you've been working toward or something that's been building up. The culmination of your high school career, for example, should be graduation day — and probably not prom night. A culmination isn't just the conclusion. It's the climax of the story, the final crowning achievement, the end result of years of research. “Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter,” said Charles Lindbergh, the first solo pilot to fly nonstop across the Atlantic — a feat that was surely the culmination of his aviation career.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

culmination culminations

The release last month represented the culmination of a year-plus of work led by Wang and Nat Friedman, head of Meta’s AI-products division.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Not to give away any spoilers, but this is the ultimate lesson in Goldie’s new book, “The Retirement Answer,” and it is the culmination of six key decisions he walks readers through.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026

"This extraordinary genomic resource, the culmination of years of international cooperation of Bat1K, is finally allowing us to understand how their remarkable biology evolved."

From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026

"It's really a culmination of more than four years of work," she said.

From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026

And he told me, and I have to say, Alaska left us with the crown jewel of pranks, the Mona Lisa of high-school hilarity, the culmination of generations of Culver Creek pranking.

From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green

About 100 high school graduations and end-of-year culminations were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, with graduation events continuing through June 16.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are one of the more disturbing culminations of this same mania for hyper-regulated efficiency at all costs.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 2, 2021

I think it’s because of a writerly trick that Beard uses in each of these stories, which has the effect of making the deaths proper culminations of the pieces in which they appear.

From Slate ● Mar. 19, 2021

What’s really been happening is a series of culminations of parallel stories, worked out in parallel.

From New York Times ● Jun. 4, 2010

It had two culminations; shortly after the appearance of The French Revolution, and again towards the close of the seventh decade of the author's life.

From Thomas Carlyle by John Nichol

Related Words

• apex
• climax
• completion
• pinnacle