From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Period \Pe"ri*od\, noun [L. periodus, Gr. peri'odos a going round, a way round, a circumference, a period of time; peri' round, about + "odo's a way: cf. F. p['e]riode.]
1. A portion of time as limited and determined by some recurring or cyclic phenomenon, as by the completion of a revolution of one of the heavenly bodies; a division of time, as a series of years, months, or days, in which something is completed, and ready to recommence and go on in the same order; as, the period of the sun, or the earth, or a comet; the period of an electromagnetic wave is the time interval between maxima.
2. Hence: A stated and recurring interval of time; more generally, an interval of time specified or left indefinite; a certain series of years, months, days, or the like; a time; a cycle; an age; an epoch; as, the period of the Roman republic.
How by art to make plants more lasting than their ordinary period. --Bacon.
3. (Geol.) One of the great divisions of geological time; as, the Tertiary period; the Glacial period. See the Chart of {Geology}.
4. The termination or completion of a revolution, cycle, series of events, single event, or act; hence, a limit; a bound; an end; a conclusion. --Bacon.
So spake the archangel Michael; then paused, As at the world's great period. --Milton.
Evils which shall never end till eternity hath a period. --Jer. Taylor.
This is the period of my ambition. --Shak.
5. (Rhet.) A complete sentence, from one full stop to another; esp., a well-proportioned, harmonious sentence. "Devolved his rounded periods." --Tennyson.
Periods are beautiful when they are not too long. --B. Johnson.
Note: The period, according to Heyse, is a compound sentence consisting of a protasis and apodosis; according to Becker, it is the appropriate form for the coordinate propositions related by antithesis or causality. --Gibbs.
6. (Print.) The punctuation point [.] that marks the end of a complete sentence, or of an abbreviated word.
7. (Math.) One of several similar sets of figures or terms usually marked by points or commas placed at regular intervals, as in numeration, in the extraction of roots, and in circulating decimals.
8. (Med.) The time of the exacerbation and remission of a disease, or of the paroxysm and intermission.
9. (Mus.) A complete musical sentence.
10. (Sports) One of the specified time intervals into which a game is divided; as, there are three periods in a hockey game. [PJC]
11. (Education) One of the specified time intervals into which the academic day is divided; as, my calculus class is in the first period. [PJC]
12. The time interval during which a woman is menstruating, or the event of a single menstruation; as, her period was late this month. [PJC]
{The period}, the present or current time, as distinguished from all other times.
Syn: Time; date; epoch; era; age; duration; limit; bound; end; conclusion; determination.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Period \Pe"ri*od\ (p[=e]"r[i^]*[u^]d), verb (used with an object) To put an end to. [Obs.] --Shak.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Period \Pe"ri*od\, verb (used without an object) To come to a period; to conclude. [Obs.] "You may period upon this, that," etc. --Felthman.
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
noun
1: an amount of time; "a time period of 30 years"; "hastened the period of time of his recovery"; "Picasso's blue period" [syn: {time period}, {period of time}, {period}]
2: the interval taken to complete one cycle of a regularly repeating phenomenon
3: (ice hockey) one of three divisions into which play is divided in hockey games
4: a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed; "ganoid fishes swarmed during the earlier geological periods" [syn: {period}, {geological period}]
5: the end or completion of something; "death put a period to his endeavors"; "a change soon put a period to my tranquility"
6: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from puberty to menopause; "the women were sickly and subject to excessive menstruation"; "a woman does not take the gout unless her menses be stopped"--Hippocrates; "the semen begins to appear in males and to be emitted at the same time of life that the catamenia begin to flow in females"-- Aristotle [syn: {menstruation}, {menses}, {menstruum}, {catamenia}, {period}, {flow}]
7: a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations; "in England they call a period a stop" [syn: {period}, {point}, {full stop}, {stop}, {full point}]
The dictionary definitions are retrieved from a local copy of two of the open source DICT dictionaries. Click here for the database copyright information. DEFINE.COM is registered as an educational NONPROFIT corporation. We aim to please around here. We believe in using positive reinforcement to get things done. We make suggestions that are intended to make life more enjoyable. We think about efficiency, automation, security, privacy, social and ecological responsibility and positive humanitarian ethics and values. We are benevolent. DO NO HARM is our motto.
In the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE, there is a particularly interesting partial SCREENSHOT of the home page here.
I used Abduction! for Firefox or Webpage Screenshot for Chrome to get this series of SCREENSHOTS.
I don't want Uncle Sam having my SIM Card PRIVATE keys.
This is a Thumbnail of the particularly interesting partial SCREENSHOT above. The really fine print is not legible, but if it's slightly oversized, it can be read in the thumbnail. Generally, in the thumbnail, you can't read the fine print. In the fine print I say that I'm using all of these copyrighted and trademarked seals and logos and images without the permission of the intellectual property owners. I am stating that these parties are not endorsing my website and that I am not related to them in any capacity. I state that my ideas and suggestions might affect them or might be related to their industries or areas of interests and that I am addressing these parties and institutions.
I allow commentary on the home page and variants of "Cool." I may not stay with DISQUS but right now it suits me - at least in these places.
