summit

summit, peak, pinnacle, climax, apex, acme, culmination, meridian, zenith, apogee can mean the highest point attained or attainable.

Summit is applied to what represents the topmost level attainable by effort or to what is the highest in its type or kind of attainable things

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this scaleless monster, eight or nine feet long, sprawling in the shade by the side of the mud pools . . . was the summit of labyrinthodont evolution— Swinton

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the Bar's outstanding figure by acclaim ... in the fullness of his powers and at the summit of his fame— Lustgarten

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Peak usually implies a point rather than a level

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the peak of enthusiasm

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It is frequently applied to something that is or can be represented in a graph; used absolutely it designates the highest point reached in a course or during a stated or implied length of time

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security prices reached new peaks this year

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his vocal control was at its peak when he did the recording— Paul Hume

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Pinnacle is applied chiefly to what has reached a dizzy and, often, insecure height

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the word theater means different things to different groups. To some its very pinnacle is South Pacific, which is despised by the aesthetes— Miller

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a pinnacle of happiness— Brooks

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never achieved the pinnacle of public life, the presidency, when lesser men did— Sevareid

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Climax implies a scale of ascending values; it is applied to the highest point in force, in intensity, in interest, or in impressiveness in an ascending movement or series. The word often suggests an end or close

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reserve your strongest argument for the climax of your speech

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the quarrel had been only the climax of a long period of increasing strain— Davis

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the Marxist version of history, according to which the seeming harmonies of our society would blow up in a catastrophic climax— Niebuhr

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Apex is applied to the highest or cul-minating point (as in time or of accomplishment) to which everything in a career, a system of thought, or a cultural development ascends and in which everything is concentrated

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if terrestrial culture were a pyramid, at the apex (where the power is) would sit a blind man, for . . . only by blinding ourselves, bit by bit, may we rise above our fellows— Theodore Sturgeori

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the British people, who look upon the king as the apex of their national and social aspirations— Bolitho

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the argument is that Wordsworth's economic, political, religious, and "sexual" unorthodoxies dawned gradually, reaching an apex about 1793— Carlos Baker

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Acme is applied to what embodies or represents the perfection or pure essence of a thing

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Sir Philip Sidney was the acme of courtesy

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to say "mither" instead of "mother" seems to many the acme of romance— Wilde

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seemed to consider this the very acme of humor, for he fairly hooted at us— R. H. Davis

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Culmination can denote an apex that is the outcome of a movement, a growth, a development, or a progress and that represents its natural end or attained objective

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this joint effort of church and crown . . . found its culmination under Louis XIV, when the nobles were definitely conquered by the crown and the Reformation by the church— Brownell

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the recent use of the atomic bomb ... is the culmination of years of Herculean effort— Stimson

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but often culmination suggests a coming to a head or issue rather than to a high point

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war is a culmination of evils, a sudden attack on the very existence of the body politic— Roosevelt

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the Reformation . . . was ... the culmination of a long agitation for national independence in religious matters— Inge

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Meridian is applied to the prime or period of fullest development or vigor in a life (as of a person, a race, or an institu-tion); it connotes not only prior ascent but ensuing decline

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I have touched the highest point of all my greatness: and, from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting—Shak.

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the past eighteen years have constituted one of the great historical meridians of the presidency— Rossiter

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Zenith adds to meridian the implications of luster and distinction

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he had reached the zenith of his powers

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classical studies reached their zenith in the twelfth century— H. O. Taylor

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Apogee, like meridian, is applied to the highest point (as in a course, a career, or a movement), but it seldom connotes being at the prime or height of glory

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the French Revolution reached its apogee in the Reign of Terror

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a rangy man whose deeply burned, granular face reached an apogee of redness in his beard— Hervey

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