period
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɪə.ɹi.əd/
ipa: /ˈpɪə.ɹɪ.əd/
ipa: /ˈpɪɚ.i.əd/
ipa: /ˈpɪɹ.i.əd/
ipa: /ˈpi.ɹɪd/
Forms: form: periods
form: per.
Etymology: From Middle English periode, from Middle French periode, from Medieval Latin periodus, from Ancient Greek περίοδος (períodos, “circuit, orbit, a recurring interval of time, path around”), from περι- (peri-, “around”) + ὁδός (hodós, “way”). Displaced native Middle English tide (“interval, period, season”), from Old English tīd (“time, period, season”), as well as Middle English elde (“age, period”), from Old English ieldu (“age, period of time”).
Senses: examples: text: There was a period of confusion following the announcement.
text: You'll be on probation for a six-month period.
text: Philip Miles, defending, said: "This was a single instance, there was no allegation of continuing behaviour over a long period of time."
ref: 2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, in Guardian:
glosses: A length of time.
examples: text: Food rationing continued in the post-war period.
text: With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Sung Yung-hsi of Ch’u-hsiung was a government student during the Chia-ch’ing period.
ref: 1962, Chung-li Chang, The Income of the Chinese Gentry, Seattle: University of Washington Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 235:
synonyms: vintage
glosses: A length of time in history seen as a single coherent entity; an epoch, era.
examples: text: ‘You know, a period? The black spot at the end of a sentence — what do you call them over there?’
ref: 2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 299:
glosses: The punctuation mark “.” (indicating the ending of a sentence or marking an abbreviation).
examples: text: My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them.
ref: 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
glosses: A decisive end to something; a stop.
glosses: The length of time during which the same characteristics of a periodic phenomenon recur, such as the repetition of a wave or the rotation of a planet.
examples: text: When she is on her period, she prefers not to go swimming.
glosses: Female menstruation; an episode of this.
glosses: Female menstruation; an episode of this.
The set of symptoms associated with menstruation, even if not accompanied by menstruation; an episode of these symptoms.
examples: text: This is one of the last paintings Picasso created during his Blue Period.
glosses: A section of an artist's, writer's (etc.) career distinguished by a given quality, preoccupation etc.
examples: text: I have math class in second period.
glosses: Each of the divisions into which a school day is split, allocated to a given subject or activity.
examples: text: Gretzky scored in the last minute of the second period.
topics: hobbies
ice-hockey
lifestyle
skating
sports
glosses: Each of the intervals, typically three, of which a game is divided.
examples: text: They won in the first overtime period.
topics: hobbies
ice-hockey
lifestyle
skating
sports
glosses: One or more additional intervals to decide a tied game, an overtime period.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: The length of time for a disease to run its course.
examples: text: As thus all gazed on hir, so she glaunced hir lookes on all, surueying them as curiously, as they noted hir exactly, but at last she set downe her period on the face of Alexis […]
ref: 1590, Robert Greene, “The Shepheards Tale”, in Greenes Mourning Garment, London: Thomas Newman, page 17:
text: And if my death might make this island happy,
And prove the period of their tyranny,
I would expend it with all willingness:
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
text: Why now let me die, for I haue liu'd long enough : This is the period of my ambition : O this bleſſed houre.
ref: c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 58, column 1:
text: All comes to one period, whether man make an end of himſelfe, or whether he endure-it[…].
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 203:
text: When Loue thus in his Center ends,
Desire and Hope, his inward friends
Are shaken off: while Doubt and Griefe,
The weakest giuers of reliefe,
Stand in his councell as the chiefe:
And now he to his period brought,
From Loue becomes some other thought.
ref: 1629, John Beaumont, “A Description of Love”, in Bosworth-field with a Taste of the Variety of Other Poems, London: Henry Seile, page 100:
text: Set up an hour-glasse; hee’l go on untill
The last sand make his Period.
ref: 1651, William Cartwright, The Ordinary, London: Humphrey Moseley, act III, scene 5, page 51:
text: […]and yet this is but the ἀρχή ὠδίνων, the Beginning of those evils which shall never End till eternity hath a period[…]
ref: a. 1667, Jeremy Taylor, “Advent Sunday Dooms-Day Book: Or, Christ’s Advent to Judgement”, in Ἐνιαυτος: A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays Of the Year, London: R. Norton, published 1673, page 8:
text: So ſpake th’ Archangel Michael, then paus’d, / As at the Worlds great period ; and our Sire / Replete with joy and wonder thus repli’d.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 1537–1539:
glosses: An end or conclusion; the final point of a process, a state, an event, etc.
examples: text: Periods are beautiful when they are not too long.
ref: 1641, Ben Jonson, Timber:
text: that such iron moulds as these shall have autority to knaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will belong to that haples race of men, whose misfortune it is to have understanding.
ref: 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC:
text: In declamatory periods Dr Fordyce spins out Rousseau's eloquence […]
ref: 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC:
text: A very superior gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods quite majestic!
ref: 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
text: He writhed for twenty minutes under the flowery and eulogistic periods of the president, and rose himself in the state of confused indignation which the Briton feels when he is publicly approved.
ref: 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
glosses: A complete sentence, especially one expressing a single thought or making a balanced, rhythmic whole.
examples: text: The Death of Patroclus was the most eminent Period; and consequently the most proper Time for such Games.
ref: 1720, Alexander Pope, translating Homer, Iliad, Book IV (note 125)
glosses: A specific moment during a given process; a point, a stage.
topics: chemistry
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: A row in the periodic table of the elements.
examples: text: These fossils are from the Jurassic period.
text: Fossils are particularly well described from the Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and have been found in the USA, England, Russia, Lebanon and Germany. Sites such as Lyme Regis in Dorset have particularly yielded number of Jurassic “squid” ink sacs and nodules (Doguzhaeva et al. 2004).
ref: 2017 August 9, Mark Carnall, “Why do cephalopods produce ink? And what's ink made of, anyway?”, in The Guardian:
topics: geography
geology
natural-sciences
glosses: A geochronologic unit of millions to tens of millions of years; a subdivision of an era, and subdivided into epochs.
examples: text: Polyclonal antibodies were prepared against the period gene product, which influences biological rhythms in D. melanogaster, by using small synthetic peptides from the per sequence as immunogens.
ref: 1988 April 1, “Antibodies to the period gene product of drosophila reveal diverse tissue distribution and rhythmic changes in the visual system”, in Neuron, volume 1, number 2, page 141:
topics: biology
genetics
medicine
natural-sciences
sciences
glosses: A Drosophila gene, the gene product of which is involved in regulation of the circadian rhythm.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Two phrases (an antecedent and a consequent phrase).
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: The length of an interval over which a periodic function, periodic sequence or repeating decimal repeats; often the least such length.
Synonyms: sense: punctuation mark “.”
word: point
sense: punctuation mark “.”
word: full stop
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
sciences
physical-sciences
natural-sciences
sense: punctuation mark “.”
word: dot
sense: punctuation mark “.”
word: full-point
sense: punctuation mark “.”
word: plain point
sense: menstrual period
word: menstruation
word: duration
word: interval
word: period
word: period of time
word: tide
word: time
word: time interval
word: time period
word: timespan
word: space
word: span
word: stound
Hypernyms: word: chrononym
Hyponyms: word: second
word: minute
word: hour
word: day
word: night
word: week
word: halfmonth
word: fortnight
word: month
word: quarter
word: trimester
word: semester
word: year
word: biennium
word: triennium
word: quadrennium
word: quinquennium
word: sexennium
word: septennium
word: octennium
word: novennium
word: decade
word: decennium
word: century
word: lifetime
word: millennium
word: geological period
word: uncertain period
word: moment
word: eon
word: interregnum
word: leave of absence
word: tour of duty
topics: military
war
government
politics
Derived terms: accounting period
Baroque period
Classical period
closed period
common practice period
contract period
cooling-off period
critical period
double period
eigenperiod
foreperiod
free period
gestation period
glacial period
grace period
grand period of growth
gyroperiod
half-period
Hamilton period
honeymoon period
hydroperiod
incubation period
intraperiod
Julian period
long-period
medium-period
Meiji period
menstrual period
menstruation period
midperiod
modern period
multiperiod
Nara period
nonperiod
notice period
on one's period
operational service period
ovulatory period
period diaper
period doubling
period drama
periodical
periodization
periodize
periodlike
period of time
periodogram
periodoscope
period pain
period pants
period piece
period play
period poverty
period shits
periodt
photoperiod
Pisano period
probationary period
Protoliterate period
pseudoperiod
pseudo-period
pseudoperiodic
psychological refractory period
question period
refractory period
Romantic period
rotational period
rotation period
scotoperiod
semiperiod
semi-period
short-period
short-period comet
short period comet
sidereal orbital period
sidereal period
sidereal rotation period
Sothic period
subperiod
sunrise period
synodic period
thermoperiod
time of pericentre passage
time period
Uruk period
waiting period
wash-up period
xerothermic period
zero period
Related terms: word: periodic
word: periodicity
word: periodicize
word: era