# period

Pronunciation: say "PEER-ee-uhd" US /ˈpɪɚ.i.əd/, UK /ˈpɪə.ɹi.əd/

## Noun

1. A stretch or length of time, especially one regarded as a single unit.
   - Simple: An amount of time with a beginning and an end, long or short.
   - _The factory shut down for a short period over the holidays._
   - _Sales improved steadily over a six-month period._
2. A stretch of history, or of a person's life or career, regarded as a coherent whole with its own distinctive character.
   - Simple: A time in history, or in someone's life or work, known for particular features.
   - _The exhibition focuses on the Romantic period in European art._
   - _Historians often divide the past into broad, named periods._
3. Menstruation, or a single monthly occurrence of it, including the bleeding and the physical and emotional symptoms that accompany it.
   - Simple: The bleeding from the womb that happens about once a month, along with the cramps and other feelings that come with it.
   - _Her period arrived a few days later than usual that month._
   - _Some athletes track their periods to plan their training._
9. The punctuation mark “.”, used to end a sentence or to mark an abbreviation. *(Canada, Philippines, US)*
   - Simple: The small dot mark you write at the end of a sentence.
   - _He always types a period followed by a single space._
   - _Editors flagged every missing period in the manuscript._
4. Each of the segments into which a school day is divided, each allotted to a subject or activity.
   - Simple: One of the parts a school day is split into, each for a subject.
   - _She teaches history during the first period of the morning._
   - _Students change classrooms between periods._
5. One of the set divisions of playing time that make up a game, such as the three periods in ice hockey, including any extra period played to break a tie.
   - Simple: One of the parts a game's playing time is divided into, including extra time played when the score is tied.
   - _The goalie made forty saves across all three periods._
   - _They tied the game late in the second period._
10. The interval of time or length after which a regularly repeating phenomenon, function, or sequence returns to the same state; in mathematics, often the smallest such interval.
   - Simple: The time or length it takes for something that repeats, like a wave or a pattern, to start over again.
   - _The period of Earth's rotation is about twenty-four hours._
   - _Engineers carefully measured the period of the vibrating string._
11. An end or conclusion; the point at which something finally stops, as in 'put a period to'.
   - Simple: The end of something. The point where it finally stops.
8. A unit of geologic time spanning millions to hundreds of millions of years, forming a subdivision of an era and itself divided into epochs.
   - Simple: A very long stretch of Earth's past, part of an era and split into smaller pieces.
   - _The Cretaceous period ended about 66 million years ago._
   - _Geologists date these fossils to the Devonian period._
12. A horizontal row in the periodic table of the elements.
   - Simple: A sideways row in the table of chemical elements.
   - _Elements in the third period range from sodium to argon._
   - _Moving across a period, atomic radius generally decreases._

## Interjection

6. Used to emphasize that a statement is final and not open to further discussion. *(Canada, US)*
   - Simple: Used to say something is final and there is nothing more to discuss.
   - _We're leaving at noon, period._
   - _She said no, and that settled it, period._

## Adjective

7. Belonging to, or designed to evoke, a particular historical era, especially in style, costume, or setting.
   - Simple: From a time in the past, or made to look like it, such as old furniture or a film set long ago.
   - _The auction featured period weapons and military uniforms._
   - _Their farmhouse is fitted with authentic period fixtures._

## Noun

13. A specific moment during a given process; a point or stage reached within it. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A particular moment or stage within something that is happening.
14. The length of time a disease takes to run its full course, from onset to resolution. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The amount of time a sickness takes to run from start to finish.

## Verb

15. To come to an end, or to bring something to an end. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To end, or to make something end.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To menstruate; to discharge blood and tissue from the uterus during the monthly cycle.
- (noun) A full sentence, particularly one that conveys a single idea or is built as a balanced, rhythmical unit.
- (noun) A musical unit consisting of two phrases, an antecedent and a consequent, that together form a complete idea.
- (noun) A Drosophila gene whose protein product helps regulate the circadian rhythm: the body's roughly 24-hour internal clock.

## Origin

This word traces back to Ancient Greek 'períodos' ('circuit, orbit, a recurring interval of time'), from 'peri-' ('around') plus 'hodós' ('way'). It reached English through Medieval Latin 'periodus' and Middle French 'periode', eventually displacing native words like Middle English 'tide' and 'elde'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/period (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).