Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having or marked by repeated cycles.
- adj. Happening or appearing at regular intervals.
- adj. Recurring or reappearing from time to time; intermittent.
- adj. Characterized by periodic sentences.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to or of the nature of a period, cycle, or round of years or events.
- Performed or proceeding in a series of successive circuits or revolutions: as, the periodic motions of the planets round the sun, or of the moon round the earth.
- Happening or occurring at regularly recurring intervals of time; statedly recurring; as, a periodic publication; the periodic return of a plant's flowering; periodic outbursts; the periodic character of ague; the periodic motion of a vibrating tuniug-fork or musical string.
- In rhetoric: Of or pertaining to a period or complete sentence; complete in grammatical structure.
- Noting that form of sentence in which the sense is incomplete or suspended until the end is reached.
- In mathematics, with values which recur as the value of the independent variable continuously increases.
- Noting an acid, a substance produced by the interaction of iodine and aqueous perchloric acid, known only in crystals which contain two molecules of water: HIO4.2H2O. Its solution has a strong acid reaction and it forms several distinct series of salts.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or derived from a periodic acid.
- adj. Relative to a period or periods.
- adj. Having repeated cycles.
- adj. Occurring at regular intervals.
- adj. Pertaining to the revolution of a celestial object in its orbit.
- adj. periodical
- adj. rhetoric Having a structure characterized by periodic sentences.
- adj. mathematics for which any return to it must occur in multiples of time steps, for some .
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Chem.) Pertaining to, derived from, or designating, the highest oxygen acid (HIO�) of iodine.
- adj. Of or pertaining to a period or periods, or to division by periods.
- adj. Performed in a period, or regular revolution; proceeding in a series of successive circuits.
- adj. Happening, by revolution, at a stated time; returning regularly, after a certain period of time; acting, happening, or appearing, at fixed intervals; recurring.
- adj. (Rhet.) Of or pertaining to a period; constituting a complete sentence.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. happening or recurring at regular intervals
- adj. recurring or reappearing from time to time
Etymologies
- From French périodique, from Medieval Latin periodicus ("cyclical"), from Latin periodus ("complete sentence, period, circuit"), from Ancient Greek περίοδος (periodos, "cycle, period of time"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The subsequent section focuses on the opportunity to restructure significantly the sequence, number, and duration of prototyping cycles into what we refer to as a periodic pattern of prototyping.”
Simon & Schuster: Managing New Product and Process Development
“Alcatel-Lucent, the French maker of telephone network equipment, said Thursday that it planned to cut 3.4 percent of its workforce in France by the end of the year as part of what it described as a periodic review of its personnel needs.”
“No country that presides over a barbarous occupation, has apartheid laws, engages in periodic genocidal rampages, and elects Zionist ultras such as Netanyahu and Avigdor (Death to Arabs) Liebermann to power has the right to point the finger at anyone else.”
Global Voices in English » Israel: Reflections on the Holocaust Memorial Day and Durban II
“He has particular research interests in periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS), and has received a mentored patient-oriented research career development award (K23), through the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health, entitled "Periodic Limb Movements in Williams Syndrome".”
“It was like watching a geyser go off, the way it would jet out in periodic rushes.”
“As a long-term periodic non-sleeper, I greeted this news with a "Yes, and?”
Sharon Glassman: Why Can't Women Sleep? Part II: How to Sleep Well on Sunday Night
“The FEC requires candidates to disclose their expenditures, including any payments to bloggers, in periodic reports to the government.”
“Levees along the Mississippi have prevented silt from depositing in periodic floods, resulting in subsidence and loss of land throughout the Delta.”
“Signatories continue to meet in periodic Conferences of the Parties, of which the most significant to date occurred in Kyoto in 1997, when binding emissions reductions for industrialized countries were proposed under an agreement called the Kyoto Protocol.”
“The mental illness is characterized by periodic delusion and disorientation.”
Simon & Schuster: Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘periodic’.
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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AGRI - horse breeding
driving, implement, Trot, speed, exhale, dope, obstacle, tail, plow, coloration, para, weaving and 678 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Time
clock, forever, never, ever, ago, when, then, now, past, present, future, timeline and 119 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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wiredweird's Words
cubane, diyne, logit, cnidoblast, fid, witling, probit, nullipara, menstruum, scrotal, carbonium, amitotic and 107 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o..., abject,utterly ho... and 2228 more...
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Pleasing words
A list of miscellaneous words, fitting in no exact theme, that I happen to enjoy.
portmanteau, aesthetic, deviation, conglomerate, treachery, soluble, bildungsroman, soliloquy, irrevocable, effervescent, phrontistery, aeipathy and 180 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., dispensing of all..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o... and 2229 more...
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AP Lang Words
AP Lang Terms
chiasmus, cumulative, periodic, periodic sentence, elliptical, negative-positive, ad hominem, red herring, straw man, non sequitur, logos, pathos and 25 more...
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Pseudorandom words
Words found through Wordie's random word function. I didn't take phrases, foreign, misspelled, or madeupical words, so I looked at about 200 words to assemble this list.
I was surprise...ishkabibble, jericho, inopercular, oppositional, puerility, chronometer, cavern, cisternae, osteospermum, boxcar, misandry, savannah and 88 more...
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Acid Jazz
sulfuric, hydrochloric, citric, hydrofluoric, nitric, ascorbic, perchloric, hydroiodic, hydrobromic, formic, acetic, hydrocyanic and 55 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., dispensing of all..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o... and 2229 more...
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allophonic homographs
Two words, one spelling, two pronunciations
multiply, arithmetic, dove, lead, periodic, unionized, lather
Tweets
Looking for tweets for periodic.
gangerh Having written it I realise that pronounced could be on it but I searched and it isn't. May 2, 2008
gangerh Someone's got a list somewhere for words that are spelt the same and pronounced differently. May 2, 2008
wiredweird PEER ee Odd ick - happening at regular intervals
PURR eye Odd ick - having iodine substituends for all hydrogen atoms May 2, 2008