Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PE'RI-OD, n. [L. periodus; Fr. periode; It. Sp. and Port. periodo; Gr. περιοδος; περι, about, and ὁδος, way.]

1. Properly, a circuit; hence, the time which is taken up by a planet in making its revolution round the sun, or the duration of its course till it returns to the point of its orbit where it began. Thus the period of the earth or its annual revolution is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 30 seconds. – Encyc.
2. In chronology, a stated number of years; a revolution or series of years by which time is measured; as, the Calippic period; the Dionysian period; the Julian period.
3. Any series of years or of days in which a revolution is completed, and the same course is to be begun.
4. Any specified portion of time, designated by years, months, days or hours complete as, a period of a thousand years; the period of a year; the period of a day.
5. End; conclusion. Death puts a period to a state of probation.
6. An indefinite portion of any continued state, existence or series of events; as, the first period of life; the last period of a king's reign; the early periods of history.
7. State at which any thing terminates; limit.
8. Length or usual length of duration. Some experiments would be made how by art to make plants more tasting than their ordinary period. – Bacon.
9. A complete sentence from one full stop to another. Periods are beautiful when they are not too long. – B. Jonson.
10. The point that marks the end of a complete sentence; a full stop, thus ( . ).
11. In numbers, a distinction made by a point or comma after every sixth place or figure. – Encyc.
12. In medicine, the time of the exacerbation and remission of a disease, or of the paroxysm and intermission. Encyc. Julian period, in chronology, a period of 7980 years; a number produced by multiplying 23, the years of the solar cycle, into 19, the years of the lunar cycle, and their product by 15, the years of the Roman indiction.