clime

• IPA^(key): /klaɪm/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: climb
• Rhymes: -aɪm

Borrowed from Latin clima, from Ancient Greek κλίμα (klíma, “(zone of) latitude”, literally “inclination”), from κλίνω (klínō, “to slope, incline”). See also climate.

clime (countable and uncountable, plural climes)

1. A particular region defined by its weather or climate.

   After working hard all of his life, Max retired to warmer climes in Florida.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, lines 242–245:

     Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
     Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat
     That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
     For that celestial light?

   • 1764 December 19 (indicated as 1765), Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society. A Poem. […], London: […] J[ohn] Newbery, […], →OCLC, page 9:

     My ſoul turn from them, turn we to ſurvey / Where rougher climes a nobler race diſplay,

   • 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume I, page 23:

     "And as their valour, so you trow, defied
     on aspe'rous voyage cruel harm and sore,
     so many changing skies their manhood tried,
     such climes where storm-winds blow and billows roar[.]"

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC:

     She thought of her husband in some vague warm clime on the other side of the globe, while she was here in the cold.

   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

     She had not yielded for an instant to the enervating charm of the tropics, but contrariwise was more active, more worldly, more decided than anyone in a temperate clime would have thought it possible to be.

   • 2025 August 20, Lisa Abend, “In Norway, Are ‘Coolcations’ Taking a Toll?”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 August 2025:

     As heat and wildfires plague many parts of Europe, the desire for cooler climes is driving tourists to Nordic countries, prompting as much concern as celebration. […] The word is “coolcation,” and in an industry that has never met a trend it couldn’t slap a portmanteau onto, the term refers to the growing number of travelers who are avoiding the heat of traditional summer spots in favor of chillier climes.

2. Climate.

   A change of clime was exactly what the family needed.

3. (figuratively) The context in general of a particular political, moral, etc., situation.
   • 1981 December 19, Andrew C. Irish, “Support For Gay Nurses”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 22, page 4:

     It is a poor state of affairs this great nation is in at present. The current political clime is pregnant with attempts and desired to make lawful such discriminatory acts based on factors within an individual's constitution which are beyond her/his control.

clime

1. (colloquial) Misspelling of climb.

clime

1. (colloquial) Misspelling of climb.

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