You're at the top of your game if you chose C, astronomy! When the verb "culminate" came into English in the 1600s, it was used in astronomy for heavenly bodies that were reaching their highest point in the sky. But it wasn't too long--less than a century, in fact--before "culminate" was used to refer to anything reaching its highest point. "Culminate" stems from the Latin word "culmen," meaning "top."