Other forms: periods
A period is a stretch of time with a start and a finish. A two-week period of rain, the period between two jobs, the quiet period after the guests have gone home.
School timetables use it for the slot: double maths, first period on Monday. History uses it for a named stretch — the Tudor period, the interwar period, and period furniture meaning made in an earlier age. It is also the standard word for menstruation, the monthly bleeding, and there it goes with have and on: she has her period, she is on her period. In American English a period is the full stop at the end of a sentence, and Americans say it out loud to close an argument: I am not going, period. In ice hockey the game comes in three periods.
1nounperiodA length of time with a beginning and an end.~26%
“For a short period he lived in Lisbon.”
2nounnamedA named stretch of history or of an artist's work.~68%
“The house dates from the Georgian period.”
3nounschoolOne of the parts a school day is divided into.~2%
“We have French in the last period on Friday.”
4nounmonthlyThe monthly bleeding of a woman's body.~2%
“Her period was three days late.”
5nounfullThe full stop at the end of a sentence, in American English.~2%
“Put a period at the end of the line.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 18 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
period is a stretch of time.
Period comes from Ancient Greek περίοδος, a going-around: περι-, around, plus ὁδός, way. A period was a circuit, a lap of time coming round again, and it reached English through Medieval Latin periodus and Middle French. It pushed aside the older native word for the same thing, tide, which survives now only in yuletide and its like.
Medieval Latin
periodus
Middle French
periode
Middle English
periode
English, today
period
Built from
From Middle English periode, from Middle French periode, from Medieval Latin periodus. From Middle English periode, from Middle French periode, from Medieval Latin periodus, from Ancient Greek περίοδος (“circuit, orbit, a recurring interval of time, path around”), from περι- (“around”) + ὁδός (“way”). Displaced native Middle English tide (“interval, period, season”), from Old English tīd (“time, period, season”), as well as Middle English elde (“age, period”), from Old English ieldu (“age, period of time”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA