ǁ Culmen. World English Historical Dictionary

ǁ Culmen. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1893, rev. 2025. ǁ Culmen

[L. culmen, contr. f. columen top, summit, roof-ridge, etc.]

1

  † 1.  gen. The top or summit; fig. the height, acme, culminating point. Obs.

2

1647.  Crashaw, Poems, 129. Chronology and history bear No other culmen than the double art Astronomy, geography impart.

3

1665.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 227. At the culmen or top was a Chappel.

4

a. 1734.  North, Exam., I. iii. § 40 (1740), 145. The Culmen of this Historian’s Art and Invention.

5

1856.  Dobell, Eng. in Time of War. That top and culmen exquisite Whereto the slanting seasons meet.

6

  2.  Ornith. The upper ridge of a bird’s bill.

7

1833.  R. Mudie, Brit. Birds (1841), II. 34. Their bills being more curved in the culmen.

8

1874.  Coues, Birds N. W., 45. The bill … slender … with the culmen concave near the base.

9

  3.  Anat. ‘The superior vermiform process of the cerebellum’ (Syd. Soc. Lex., 1882).

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