Culminating

How to spell culminating

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce culminating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does culminating mean?

1. verbReaching or building up to a final, decisive, or highest point.

Culminating in a sentence

• The week-long conference is culminating in a keynote address on Friday evening.

• Months of rehearsals are culminating in a single live performance.

Where does culminating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun culmen, which literally meant the top, summit, or highest point of something, such as the ridge of a roof or the peak of a hill. From culmen the Late Latin verb culminare was formed, meaning to reach or crown the highest point. English adopted the verb culminate in the seventeenth century, at first in astronomy to describe a star or planet reaching its highest position in the sky as it crossed the meridian, and only later in the broader sense of building toward a final, climactic result. The Latin culmen is closely related to columen, meaning a pillar or support, which is also the source of the word column, so the idea of something standing at its highest peak runs through the whole family. The single 'l' and the unstressed middle vowel, written 'i' but sounded as a faint schwa, are the spots where careful writers slip, since the spelling gives no strong hint of that 'min' syllable.

How the word is built

• culmin- (from Latin culmen: top, summit)
• -ate (verb-forming)
• -ing (present participle)