2. Any specified division or portion of time: poetry of the period from 1603 to 1660.
3. A round of time or series of years by which time is measured.
4. A round of time marked by the recurrence of some phenomenon or occupied by some recurring process or action.
5. The point of completion of a round of time or of the time during which something lasts or happens.
6. A specific length of time during school hours that a student spends in a classroom, laboratory, etc., or has free.
7. Any of the parts of equal length into which a game is divided.
8. The time during which something runs its course.
9. The present time.
10. The point or character (.) used to mark the end of a declarative sentence, indicate an abbreviation, etc.; a full stop.
11. A full pause, as is made at the end of a complete sentence; a full stop.
12. A sentence; especially, a well-balanced, impressive sentence.
13. A term used to indicate an occurrence of menstruation.
14. A time of the month during which menstruation occurs.
15. The basic unit of geologic time, during which a standard rock system is formed.
16. The duration of one complete cycle of a wave or oscillation; the reciprocal of the frequency.
17. A musical division of a composition, usually a passage of eight or sixteen measures, complete or satisfactory in itself, commonly consisting of two or more contrasted or complementary phrases ending with a conclusive cadence.
18. In astronomy, "a period of rotation"; the time in which a body rotates once on its axis or "a period of revolution"; the time in which a planet or satellite revolves once about its primary.
19. Noting, pertaining to, evocative of, imitating, or representing a historical period or the styles which are current during a specific period of history; such as, period costumes; a period play.
20. Used by a speaker or writer to indicate that a decision is irrevocable or that a point is no longer discussable: "I forbid you to leave, period."
21. Etymology: A "course or extent of time", from Modern Latin periodus, "recurring portion, cycle", from Latin periodus, "a complete sentence"; also "cycle of the Greek games" from Greek periodos, "rounded sentence, cycle, circuit, period of time"; literally, "going around", from peri-, "around" plus hodos, "a going, a way, a journey".
Sense of "repeated cycle of events" led to that of "interval of time". Meaning "dot marking end of a sentence" first recorded in 1609, from a similar use in Modern Latin. Sense of "menstruation" dates from 1822. Educational sense of "portion of time set apart for a lesson" is from 1876. Used in the sporting sense is attested from 1898.
2. A long phase of the postglacial geological history of Europe with a warm and dry climate: "The Xerothermal Period is chronologically corresponding to the end of the Atlantic and the beginning of the Subboreal period (4,000-5,000 years ago)."
The historic period in any particular region begins when writing systems emerge or when literate cultures come into contact with the regions preliterate inhabitants.
A planet's sidereal period can be calculated from its synodic period or the length of time during which a body in the solar system makes one orbit of the sun relative to the earth.
The sidereal period of the moon or an artificial satellite of the earth is the time it takes to return to the same position against the background of stars.
Because the earth moves in its own orbit, the synodic period differs from the sidereal period, which is measured relative to the stars.
The synodic period of the moon, which is called the lunar month, or lunation, is 29 1/2 days long which is longer than the sidereal month.
The moon's synodic period is the time between successive recurrences of the same phase; that is, the period between one full moon and the next full moon.
A period is a single small dot at the end of a group of words that have been written and it means that this is the end of a complete statement or sentence.
The period is a warning to the reader that the statement is finished and so it must not be run together with whatever follows it.
The idea that is stated in the sentence, or group of words, begins with a capital letter and ends with a period which is presented in the form of a simple assertion.
The writer does not intend to ask the reader a question, nor does he or she want the reader to feel that the sentence is expressing a thought with great emphasis. It is simply stated and that's what the period tells readers.
That is all anyone needs to know about the single little dot which is used as a mark of punctuation and is called a period. Oh, yes, remember that when an abbreviation occurs at the end of a sentence, or a statement, the abbreviation point and the period are combined into one dot and so the use of two dots is not necessary nor acceptable in normal English writing.
Fat little period, round as a ball,
You'd think it would roll,
But it doesn't
At all. Where it stops,
There it plops,
There it stubbornly stays,
At the end of a sentence
For days and days.
"Get out of my way!"
Cries the sentence. "Beware!"
But the period seems not to hear or to care.
Like a stone in the road,
It won't budge, it won't bend.
If it spoke, it would say to a sentence,
"The end."