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A Period

  1. A length of time. [from 17th c.]
  2. A period of time in history seen as a single coherent entity; an epoch, era. [from 16th c.]
  3. (now chiefly Canada, US) The punctuation mark “.” (indicating the ending of a sentence or marking an abbreviation).
  4. (figuratively) An decisive end to something; a stop.
  5. The length of time during which the same characteristics of a periodic phenomenon recur, such as the repetition of a wave or the rotation of a planet. [from 17th c.]
  6. Female menstruation. [from 18th c.]
  7. A section of an artist's, writer's (etc.) career distinguished by a given quality, preoccupation etc. [from 19th c.]
  8. Each of the divisions into which a school day is split, allocated to a given subject or activity. [from 19th c.]
  9. (chiefly Canada, US) Each of the intervals into which various sporting events are divided. [from 19th c.]
  10. (obsolete, medicine) The length of time for a disease to run its course. [15th-19th c.]
  11. An end or conclusion; the final point of a process etc. [from 16th c.]
  12. (rhetoric) A complete sentence, especially one expressing a single thought or making a balanced, rhythmic whole. [from 16th c.]
  13. (obsolete) A specific moment during a given process; a point, a stage. [17th-19th c.]
  14. (chemistry) A row in the periodic table of the elements. [from 19th c.]
  15. (geology) A subdivision of an era, typically lasting from tens to hundreds of millions of years, see Appendix: Geologic timescale.
  16. (genetics) A Drosophila gene, the gene product of which is involved in regulation of the circadian rhythm.
  17. (music) Two phrases (an antecedent and a consequent phrase).
  18. (mathematics) The length of an interval over which a periodic function, periodic sequence or repeating decimal repeats; often the least such length.
  19. (archaic) End point, conclusion.
Synonyms

(punctuation mark “.”): point; full stop (UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa); dot (computing, abbreviations); full-point, plain point (obsolete)

(menstrual period): menstruation.

Antonyms

(length of time of recurrence of a periodic phenomenon): frequency

Astrophysics:

Determining the period for binary stars can be conducted directly by observation:

  1. spectroscopic binary: the long it takes for the Doppler shifts to go through a full cycle.
  2. astrometric binary: the long it takes for the ‘wobble’ to go through a full cycle.
  3. eclipsing binary: the long it takes the light curve to go through a full cycle.