Definition Definition

period - Meaning and Examples

Meaning of 'period' (Webster Dictionary)

1 . Period [ n.]
- A portion of time as limited and determined by some recurring 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.
- 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.
- One of the great divisions of geological time; as, the Tertiary period; the Glacial period. See the Chart of Geology.
- The termination or completion of a revolution, cycle, series of events, single event, or act; hence, a limit; a bound; an end; a conclusion.
- A complete sentence, from one full stop to another; esp., a well-proportioned, harmonious sentence.
- The punctuation point [.] that marks the end of a complete sentence, or of an abbreviated word.
- 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.
- The time of the exacerbation and remission of a disease, or of the paroxysm and intermission.
- A complete musical sentence.
2 . Period [ v. i.]
- To come to a period; to conclude. [Obs.] "You may period upon this, that," etc.
3 . Period [ v. t.]
- To put an end to.

Meaning of 'period' (Princeton's WordNet)

1 . period [ n]
Meaning (1):
- the end or completion of something
Example in sentence:
  • a change soon put a period to my tranquility;
  • death put a period to his endeavors
Meaning (2):
- an amount of time
Example in sentence:
  • a time period of 30 years;
  • hastened the period of time of his recovery;
  • Picasso's blue period
Meaning (3):
- the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from puberty to menopause
Example in sentence:
  • a woman does not take the gout unless her menses be stopped;
  • 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;
  • the women were sickly and subject to excessive menstruation
Meaning (4):
- a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed
Example in sentence:
  • ganoid fishes swarmed during the earlier geological periods
Meaning (5):
- a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations
Example in sentence:
  • in England they call a period a stop