noun

• 1The highest point in the development of something; a climax or culmination.

  ‘the White House is considered the apogee of American achievement’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Perhaps the apogee of the anti-globalisation movement came during the Group of Eight Meeting in Genoa in the third week of July, when some 300,000 people marched in the face of police tear-gas attacks.’
  • ‘If the United States, the richest country in the world at the apogee of its own wealth, does not take the lead, the rest of the world will not follow.’
  • ‘‘The Oscars are the apogee of the awards season - after that, no one is interested,’ said one UK distributor.’
  • ‘The British, even at the apogee of their power as world's prime empire-builders, knew exactly the cost of putting their hand into a hornet's nest.’
  • ‘Despite all the glories that came later, the show suggests that this was the apogee of New York, and it's hard to disagree.’
  • ‘Everyone splashed and basked: the apogee of summer, the point when it seems so ordinary it must be eternal.’
  • ‘How can the apogee of 19th century technology compete with silicon?’
  • ‘The 1950s and early 1960s witnessed the apogee of clerical power in Ireland.’
  • ‘The best-selling album of all time, this was the apogee of Jackson's career.’
  • ‘It would mark the apogee of a dumbed-down society, but it is unlikely to happen.’
  • ‘Yet by the end of the nineteenth century - the apogee of the Victorian Age - the moral justification for the empire and the scientific knowledge of the effects of opium use could no longer ensure that this drug trade would go unchallenged.’
  • ‘From their arrival in England the ‘Elgin Marbles’ had a revolutionary impact on European taste, and the Parthenon sculptures are still considered to mark the apogee of Greek art.’
  • ‘In my view, the 1970s and perhaps early-to-mid 1980s represent the apogee of the Anthropology Department, if not the University of Sydney itself.’
  • ‘He had believed that the assumption of immortality through religion was the apogee of man's greed.’
  • ‘This is the apogee of my career in anthropology, as well as the highlight of whatever personal accomplishments I may have earned in my chosen profession.’
  • ‘The card was written at the apogee of Einstein's fame.’
  • ‘A TV show of the 80s assumed that a burger was the apogee of western sophistication.’
  • ‘And in the meantime, we are once again at an apogee of music, that resonates not only in the studio but in the global festival scene.’
  • ‘Stalin retained control through the continuous flow of information, his monopoly of secret intelligence and his immense authority - in these years his cult of the personality reached its apogee.’
  • ‘The rage for mirrors reached an apogee in the construction of the great Hall of Mirrors at Louis XIV's palace at Versailles, completed in 1678; here the Sun King's magnificence could be endlessly reflected.’

  Synonyms

  climax, pinnacle, peak, high point, highest point, height, high water mark, top, summit, crest, zenith, crowning moment, apotheosis

• 2Astronomy
  The point in the orbit of the moon or a satellite at which it is furthest from the earth.

  The opposite of perigee

  ‘As the satellite rose up to the apogee of its orbit, the particle counts rose steadily until they reached the highest level, stayed at the maximum for a while, and then abruptly dropped to zero.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘A few taps on the pocket calculator show that the Moon's speed in its geocentric orbit is around 2,300 miles per hour, although variable between perigee and apogee.’
  • ‘And later on when we once again stepped out into the night air, the three-quarter moon was past its apogee.’
  • ‘Contrasting full moons seen near perigee and apogee indicate how much the apparent size of the Moon varies each month.’
  • ‘The satellite will thus be altering its speed at different times in its orbit and will have a maximum speed at perigee and minimum at apogee.’

  Synonyms

  top, peak, mountaintop, crest, crown, apex, vertex, apogee, tip, cap