Dictionary:

period

  (pîr'ē-əd)

1. An interval of time characterized by the occurrence of a certain condition, event, or phenomenon: a period of economic prosperity.
2. An interval of time characterized by the prevalence of a specified culture, ideology, or technology: artifacts of the pre-Columbian period.
3. An interval regarded as a distinct evolutionary or developmental phase: Picasso's early career is divided into his blue period and rose period.
4. Geology. A unit of time, longer than an epoch and shorter than an era.
5. Any of various arbitrary units of time, especially:
   1. Any of the divisions of the academic day.
   2. Sports & Games. A division of the playing time of a game.
6. Physics & Astronomy. The time interval between two successive occurrences of a recurrent event or phases of an event; a cycle: the period of a satellite's orbit.
7. An instance or occurrence of menstruation.
8. A point or portion of time at which something is ended; a completion or conclusion.
9. The full pause at the end of a spoken sentence.
10. A punctuation mark (.) indicating a full stop, placed at the end of declarative sentences and other statements thought to be complete, and after many abbreviations.
11. A sentence of several carefully balanced clauses in formal writing.
12. 1. A metrical unit of quantitative verse consisting of two or more cola.
    2. An analogous unit or division of classical Greek or Latin prose.
13. Music. A group of two or more phrases within a composition, often made up of 8 or 16 measures and terminating with a cadence.
14. Mathematics.
    1. The least interval in the range of the independent variable of a periodic function of a real variable in which all possible values of the dependent variable are assumed.
    2. A group of digits separated by commas in a written number.
    3. The number of digits that repeat in a repeating decimal. For example, ¹/₇ = 0.142857142857 . . . has a six-digit period.
15. Chemistry. A sequence of elements arranged in order of increasing atomic number and forming one of the horizontal rows in the periodic table.

Of, belonging to, or representing a certain historical age or time: a period piece; period furniture.

Used to emphasize finality, as when expressing a decision or an opinion: You're not going to the movies tonight, period!

[Middle English periode, from Old French, from Medieval Latin periodus, from Latin perihodos, rhetorical period, from Greek periodos, circuit : peri-, peri- + hodos, way.]

SYNONYMS  period, epoch, era, age, term. These nouns refer to a portion or length of time. Period is the most general: a short waiting period; a difficult period of my life; the Romantic period in music. Epoch refers to a period regarded as being remarkable or memorable: “We enter on an epoch of constitutional retrogression” (John R. Green). An era is a period of time notable because of new or different aspects or events: “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book” (Henry David Thoreau). An age is usually a period marked by a distinctive characteristic: the age of Newton; the Iron Age. A term is a period of time to which limits have been set: Senators are elected for a term of six years.

WORD HISTORY   Many may have wondered why the word period has the sense “punctuation mark ( . )” as well as several senses having to do with time. The answer to this question lies in one of the senses of the Greek word periodos from which our word is descended. Periodos, made up of peri–, “around,” and hodos, “way,” in addition to meaning such things as “going around, way around, going around in a circle, circuit,” and with regard to time, “cycle or period of time,” referred in rhetoric to “a group of words organically related in grammar and sense.” The Greek word was adopted into Latin as perihodos, which in the Medieval Latin period acquired a new sense related to its use in rhetoric, “a punctuation mark used at the end of a rhetorical period.” This sense is not recorded in English until 1609, but the word had already entered English as a borrowing from Old French in the sense “a cycle of recurrence of a disease,” first being recorded in a work written around 1425.

Interval of time as long or short as fits the situation.

noun

1. A specific length of time characterized by the occurrence of certain conditions or events: season, span, stretch, term. See time.
2. A particular time notable for its distinctive characteristics: age, day, epoch, era, time (often used in plural). See time.
3. An interval regarded as a distinct evolutionary or developmental unit: phase, stage. See time.
4. A span designated for a given activity: season, time. See time.
5. A concluding or terminating: cease, cessation, close, closing, closure, completion, conclusion, consummation, end, ending, end of the line, finish, stop, stopping point, termination, terminus, wind-up, wrap-up. See continue/stop/pause.

geology The third-largest unit (following era) of the geochronologic scale, and the secondary one into which it, excluding the pre-Cambrian, is divided; examples include Devonian, Jurassic, and Quaternary. Typical size is about 50 000 000 years. The next smaller unit is epoch.

1. A unit of geological time; the subdivision of an era. Thus the Cretaceous period is part of the Mesozoic era.

2. The time taken for successive wave crests to pass a given point.

A musical statement terminated by a cadence or built of complementary members, each generally two to eight bars long (‘antecedent’ and ‘consequent’).

For more information on period, visit Britannica.com.

A punctuation mark (.) that ends a declarative sentence. A period is also used in abbreviations such as Mr. and Dr.

Time to complete one full cycle of a periodic or repeating waveform.

A musical statement, made up of two or more phrases, and a cadence.

(DOD) The time it takes for a satellite to complete one orbit around the earth. As a rule of thumb, satellites with periods of 87.5 minutes are on the verge of reentry.

Period and periodic may refer to:

1. An interval of time that an event, chain of events, instance or happening, takes place within. It is measured between a start point and an end point and generally repeats (which is where the term period came to describe a female's menstrual cycle) or progresses, in a cycle with the end point of one period being the start point of the next.
2. A periodic sentence.
3. A full stop, a punctuation mark which indicates the end of a sentence (.).

Business

• In business, particularly accounting, a period is the time interval(s) that the accounts, statement, payments, or other calculations cover. They won the situation. e.g. Payments, Receipts, Taxes - annually, quarterly or monthly. Salary or wages - monthly, fortnightly or weekly.

Education

• In schools, a period is the time allocated in the school timetable for instruction in a particular subject.

History

• Historical period
• Period piece

Music

• Period (music)

Science

• Periodisation, is the attempt to categorise or divide time, or history, into discrete named blocks.

Biology

• Menstruation, which usually occurs for discrete periods of time in mammals
• Gene for circadian rhythm

Chemistry

• Periodic acid. The name is not derived from period, but from iodine: per-iodic acid.
• Periodic table, a table of the chemical elements arranged based on their chemical and physical similarities and differences.
• Periodic table period, which is a row of elements in the periodic table.

Electronics

• Time between recurring edges of a clock signal. Measured in seconds. 1 / period = frequency.

Mathematics

• Periodic function, in mathematics and electronics
• Simple harmonic motion
  • Doubly-periodic function
• Periodic point
  • Periodic points of complex quadratic mappings
• Recurring decimal
• Periodic group
• In a group, the period of an element a is the smallest integer n such that aⁿ = e, the identity.
• Periods, a class of numbers

Physics

• In physics, a period is an interval of time between the recurrence of phases in a vibration, waveform etc.

Astronomy

• Orbital period, in astronomy

Optics

• Periodic poling

Geology

• Period (geology), a unit of geological time

Literature

Period is the name of the final novel in Dennis Cooper's George Miles Cycle.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - periode, undervisningstime, menstruation, punktum
adj. - tids-

idioms:

• period piece    fint eksempel på en genstand fra en bestemt periode

Nederlands (Dutch)
tijdperk, tijdvak, tijdruimte, punt, lesuur, menstruatie, passage/ volzin, periode (wiskunde/ scheikunde/muziek), typerend voor bepaald tijdperk, "... en daarmee uit"

Français (French)
n. - (gén, Astron, Hist) période, époque, (Art) période, (US, lit, fig) point, menstruations, (École) cours, leçon, (Sport) période de jeu, manche
adj. - d'époque, caractéristique de l'époque, de style (ancien)

idioms:

• period piece    curiosité d'époque

Deutsch (German)
n. - Zeitalter, Periode, Pause, Satz(gefüge), Punkt, Monatsblutung, Zeit, Abschnitt
adj. - Perioden...

idioms:

• period piece    Zeitstück, Zeitroman

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (χρονική) περίοδος, ώρα μαθήματος, (γραμμ.) τελεία (στιγμή), (μτφ.) εποχή

idioms:

• period piece    κομμάτι ιστορικής αξίας

Italiano (Italian)
era, epoca, periodo, durata, intervallo, ora di lezione, punto, ciclo, flusso mestruale

idioms:

• period piece    mobile di antiquariato

Português (Portuguese)
n. - período (m), menstruação (f), fase (f), ponto final (m), ciclo (m), revolução (f) (Astr.)

idioms:

• period piece    peça de época/antiga

Русский (Russian)
период, точка, цикл, месячные

idioms:

• period piece    вещица, типичная для своей эпохи

Español (Spanish)
n. - período, época, era, plazo, hora, clase, punto, pausa, ciclo, regla, menstruo
adj. - perteneciente a, evocativo de, imitando o representando un período histórico

idioms:

• period piece    característico de la época

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - (tids)period, skede, lektion, punkt, slut, menstruation

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
时期, 期间, 课, 课时, 时代, 周期, 过去某段时期的

idioms:

• period piece    古物, 文物, 古代作品, 时代作品

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 時期, 期間, 課, 課時, 時代, 周期
adj. - 過去某段時期的

idioms:

• period piece    古物, 文物, 古代作品, 時代作品

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 기간, 시대, 말기
adj. - 어느(과거의) 시대의

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 期間, 時代, 現代, ピリオド, 時限, 一区切り, 紀, 周期, …期
adj. - ある時代の
int. - 以上, それだけのこと

idioms:

• incubation period    潜伏期間, 孵卵期間, 潜伏期
• period of repayment    返済期間
• period piece    時代物

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) فترة, مدة, طور, عهد, عصر, حصه دراسيه, طمث, العادة الشهريه عند النساء, نقطه تدل على انتهاء الجمله, جمله تامه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תקופה, מחזור, וסת, נקודה, משך-זמן, שיעור, עונה, הקפה, מחזורת, משפט מלא‬
adj. - ‮שייך לתקופה בעבר או מאפיין אותה‬

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