D defs.my
Entry 1 sense Webster, 1913

climb-down

· IPA
01 n. a retraction of a previously held position.
  1. 1.
    a retraction of a previously held position.
    “I should hardly yield my rigid fibers to be regenerated by them; nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental sounds of their barbarous metaphysics.” Burke.
Phrases & compounds
Grand climacteric — the sixty-third year of human life.