period

n 1: an indefinite length of time; "a time period of 30 years";

"hastened the period of his recovery" [syn: {time period},

{period of time}, {amount of time}]

2: a stage in the history of a culture having a definable place

in space and time; "a novel from the Victorian period"

[syn: {historic period}, {historical period}]

3: the interval taken to complete one cycle of a regularly

repeating phenomenon

4: a time of life characterized as a distinct phase; "Picasso's

blue period"; "it was the happy period of my life"

5: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of

nonpregnant women from puberty to menopause; "the women

were sickly and subject to excessive menstruation"; "a

woman does not take the gout unless her menses be

stopped"--Hippocrates; "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"--Aristotle [syn: {menstruation},

{menses}, {catamenia}, {flow}]

6: a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative

sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations;

"in England they call a period a stop" [syn: {point}, {full

stop}, {stop}, {full point}]

7: a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks

formed; "ganoid fishes swarmed during the earlier

geological periods" [syn: {geological period}]

8: one of three periods of play in hockey games

9: the end or completion of something; "death put a period to

his endeavors"; "a change soon put a period to my

tranquility"