period: meaning and definitions

An interval of time characterized by the occurrence of a certain condition, event, or phenomenon: a period of economic prosperity.

An interval of time characterized by the prevalence of a specified culture, ideology, or technology: artifacts of the pre-Columbian period.

An interval regarded as a distinct evolutionary or developmental phase: Picasso's early career is divided into his blue period and rose period.

Geology A unit of time, longer than an epoch and shorter than an era.

Any of various arbitrary units of time, especially:

Any of the divisions of the academic day.

Sports & Games A division of the playing time of a game.

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.

An instance or occurrence of menstruation.

A point or portion of time at which something is ended; a completion or conclusion.

The full pause at the end of a spoken sentence.

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.

A sentence of several carefully balanced clauses in formal writing.

A metrical unit of quantitative verse consisting of two or more cola.

An analogous unit or division of classical Greek or Latin prose.

Music A group of two or more phrases within a composition, often made up of 8 or 16 measures and terminating with a cadence.

Mathematics 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.

Mathematics A group of digits separated by commas in a written number.

Mathematics The number of digits that repeat in a repeating decimal. For example, 1/7 = 0.142857142857 . . . has a six-digit period.

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!