Definition of apogee in English:

noun

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

  ‘a film which was the apogee of German expressionist cinema’

  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.

  More example sentences

  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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