climate

From Middle English climat, from Old French climat, from Latin clima, from Ancient Greek κλίμα (klíma, “latitude”, literally “inclination”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈklaɪmɪt/

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climate (plural climates)

1. The long-term manifestations of weather and other atmospheric conditions in a given area or country, now usually represented by the statistical summary of its weather conditions during a period long enough to ensure that representative values are obtained (generally 30 years).
   • 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns

     And the effects from climate change are already extreme.

2. (figuratively) The context in general of a particular political, moral, etc., situation.

   Industries that require a lot of fossil fuels are unlikely to be popular in the current political climate.

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎:

     In polling by the Pew Research Center in November 2008, fully half the respondents thought the two parties would cooperate more in the coming year, versus only 36 percent who thought the climate would grow more adversarial.

   • 2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 63:

     This isn't the time for militant unionism. If I were at ScotRail, in the current climate I'd trade a pay freeze [sic: pay rise?] for job security.

3. (nonstandard) Clipping of climate change.
   • 2022 December 1, Martin Griffiths, “Press conference on the launch of the 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview [...]”, in ReliefWeb‎ (transcript), archived from the original on 2022-12-01, retrieved 2022-12-02:

     And the needs are going up because we’ve been smitten by the war in Ukraine, by COVID, by climate. And I fear that 2023 is going to be an acceleration of all those trends.

4. (obsolete) An area of the earth's surface between two parallels of latitude.
5. (obsolete) A region of the Earth.

climate (third-person singular simple present climates, present participle climating, simple past and past participle climated)

1. (poetic, obsolete) To dwell.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i], line 169:

     The blessed gods / Purge all infection from our air whilst you / Do climate here!

• climate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• climate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• climate at OneLook Dictionary Search

• amletic, metical

climate

1. ablative singular of clima