cycle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An interval of time during which a characteristic, often regularly repeated event or sequence of events occurs: Sunspots increase and decrease in intensity in an 11-year cycle.
2. n. A single complete execution of a periodically repeated phenomenon: A year constitutes a cycle of the seasons.
3. n. A periodically repeated sequence of events: the cycle of birth, growth, and death; a cycle of reprisal and retaliation.
4. n. The orbit of a celestial body.
5. n. A long period of time; an age.
6. n. The aggregate of traditional poems or stories organized around a central theme or hero: the Arthurian cycle.
7. n. A series of poems or songs on the same theme: Schubert's song cycles.
8. n. A bicycle, motorcycle, or similar vehicle.
9. n. Botany A circular or whorled arrangement of flower parts such as those of petals or sepals.
10. n. Linguistics In generative grammar, the principle that allows an ordered set of linguistic rules or operations to apply repeatedly to successive stages of a derivation. Often used with the.
11. v. To occur in or pass through a cycle.
12. v. To move in or as if in a cycle.
13. v. To ride a bicycle, motorcycle, or similar vehicle.
14. v. To use in or put through a cycle: cycled the heavily soiled laundry twice; cycling the recruits through eight weeks of basic training.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens.
2. n. A round of years or a recurring period of time used as a larger unit in reckoning time; especially, a period in which certain astronomical phenomena go through a series of changes which recur in the corresponding parts of the next period.
3. n. Any long period of years; an age.
4. n. Any round of operations or events; a series which returns upon itself; specifically, in physics, a series of operations by which a substance is finally brought back to the initial state.
5. n. In literature, the aggregate of legendary or traditional matter accumulated round some mythical or heroic event or character, as the siege of Troy and the Argonautic expedition of antiquity, or the Round Table, the Cid, and the Nibelungs of medieval times, and embodied in epic or narrative poetry or in romantic prose narrative.
6. n. In botany: In the theory of spiral leaf-arrangement, a complete turn of the spire which is assumed to exist.
7. n. A closed circle or whorl of leaves.
8. n. In corals, a set of septa of equal length. See septum.
9. n. As used by the old medical sect of Methodists, an aggregate of curative means continued during a certain number of days, usually nine.
10. n. A bicycle or tricycle; a “wheel.”
11. To occur or recur in cycles.
12. [See cycle, n., 9.] To ride or take exercise on a bicycle or tricycle.
13. n. A false spelling of sickle. Fuller.
14. n. In electricity, the time of one complete wave, or double reversal, of alternating currents. Frequencies are usually denoted in cycles per second. See alternating.
15. n. In chem., same as ring, n. 18.
16. n. In mech., a succession of conditions, operations, or phases which follow each other in a determinate order; specifically, in gas or internal-combustion motors, the successive changes experienced by the mixture of fuel and air in the motor cylinder. In the cycle proposed by Beau de Rochas, now better known as the Otto cycle, the mixture of fuel and air is drawn into the cylinder by an aspirating stroke of the piston and the mixture is compressed by the return of the piston; then this compressed mixture is ignited by an electric spark, or other means, and the expansion due to the heating of the air by the combustion of the gas causes a rise in pressure and exerts the forward effort on the piston during the second outward stroke; during this increase of volume the pressure is lowered. On the second return stroke, the exhaust-valve is opened and the burned gases are expelled during this fourth traverse. Then the cycle repeats itself. This cycle may be realized in one cylinder; or aspiration and compression may be done in one cylinder, and the working-stroke and following exhaust take place in another; or, in the two-phase cycle, or two-cycle motor, the intake or aspiration phase may take place just at the end of the working-stroke, the exhaust not occupying the time of a piston traverse. This makes one working-stroke for each complete revolution of the crank. The cycles may differ in having the compression and expansion isothermal or adiabatic, the heating at constant volume or at constant pressure, and the cooling phenomena isothermal or adiabatic. The compression may be omitted, although efficiency is increased by-retaining it. The cycle of the gas-mixture should not be confounded with the mechanical arrangements for realizing and utilizing it.
17. n. In mathematics: In geometry, a closed path in a multiply connected region.
18. n. In function-theory, the set of homologous corners of a given region (in substitution-groups).
19. n. In meteorology, the repetition of some general atmospheric phenomenon at approximately regular intervals. The more prominent cycles are the 35-year period, deduced by Bruckner; the sun-spot period, which varies between seven, and thirteen years following the sun-spots; the 26.6 day period, deduced by Professor F. H. Bigelow; the lunar or tidal periods, the existence of which has been asserted by many persons but which are still uncertain; a 7-year period in the rainfall of Illinois, announced by Dr. Cyrus Thomas; the geological periods of indefinite and irregular extent, discussed by many geologists; the sun-spot period in the tropical temperatures combined with a retardation further away from the equator, as deduced by Koeppen; the annual temperature-wave carried slowly from the tropics to the polar regions by the ocean current or surface drift; and the diurnal and annual periods, carried from the surface of the ground downward by the conduction of heat through the ground.

Wiktionary

1. n. An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
2. n. A complete rotation of anything.
3. n. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
4. n. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
5. n. music In musical set theory, an interval cycle is the set of pitch classes resulting from repeatedly applying the same interval class to the starting pitch class.
6. n. A series of poems, songs or other works of art
7. n. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
8. n. A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle; or, motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels, such as a motorbike, motorcycle, motorized tricycle, or motortrike.
9. n. baseball A single, a double, a triple, and a home run hit by the same player in the same game.
10. n. graph theory A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
11. v. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
12. v. To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
13. v. electronics To turn power off and back on
14. v. ice hockey To maintain a team's possession of the puck in the offensive zone by handling and passing the puck in a loop from the boards near the goal up the side boards and passing to back to the boards near the goal

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
2. n. An interval of time in which a certain succession of events or phenomena is completed, and then returns again and again, uniformly and continually in the same order; a periodical space of time marked by the recurrence of something peculiar.
3. n. An age; a long period of time.
4. n. obsolete An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
5. n. The circle of subjects connected with the exploits of the hero or heroes of some particular period which have served as a popular theme for poetry, as the legend of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and that of Charlemagne and his paladins.
6. n. (Bot.) One entire round in a circle or a spire.
7. n. A bicycle or tricycle, or other light velocipede.
8. n. A motorcycle.
9. n. (Thermodynamics) A series of operations in which heat is imparted to (or taken away from) a working substance which by its expansion gives up a part of its internal energy in the form of mechanical work (or being compressed increases its internal energy) and is again brought back to its original state.
10. n. (Technology), (Elec.) A complete positive and negative, or forward and reverse, action of any periodic process, such as a vibration, an electric field oscillation, or a current alternation; one period. A complete positive and negative wave of an alternating current. The number of cycles (per second) is a measure of the frequency of an alternating current.
11. v. To pass through a cycle{2} of changes; to recur in cycles.
12. v. To ride a bicycle, tricycle, or other form of cycle.
13. v. To cause to pass through a cycle{2}.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. pass through a cycle
2. n. a single complete execution of a periodically repeated phenomenon
3. v. ride a bicycle
4. n. an interval during which a recurring sequence of events occurs
5. v. ride a motorcycle
6. n. a series of poems or songs on the same theme
7. n. a wheeled vehicle that has two wheels and is moved by foot pedals
8. v. cause to go through a recurring sequence
9. n. the unit of frequency; one hertz has a periodic interval of one second
10. n. a periodically repeated sequence of events
11. v. recur in repeating sequences