PERIOD


Meaning of PERIOD in English

■ noun

1》 a length or portion of time.

↘a major division of geological time that is a subdivision of an era and is itself subdivided into epochs.

2》 each of the set divisions of the day in a school.

3》 (also menstrual ~ ) a monthly flow of blood and other material from the lining of the uterus, occurring in women of childbearing age when not pregnant.

4》 N. Amer. a full stop.

5》 Physics the interval of time between successive occurrences of the same state in an oscillatory or cyclic phenomenon.

6》 Mathematics the interval between successive equal values of a ~ic function.

7》 Chemistry a set of elements occupying a horizontal row in the ~ic table.

8》 Astronomy the time taken by a celestial object to rotate about its axis, or to make one circuit of its orbit.

9》 Rhetoric a complex sentence, especially one consisting of several clauses, constructed as part of a formal speech or oration.

■ adjective belonging to or characteristic in style of a past historical time: ~ furniture.

Derivatives

~ization or ~isation noun

~ize or ~ise verb

Origin

ME: from OFr. ~e , via L. from Gk ~os 'orbit, recurrence, course'.

Concise Oxford English vocab.      Сжатый оксфордский словарь английского языка.