cycle

English Online Dictionary. What means cycle‎? What does cycle mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English cicle (“fixed length period of years”), from Late Latin cyclus, from Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos, “circle”), from Proto-Hellenic *kúklos, *kʷókʷlos, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos (“circle, wheel”).

Doublet of chakra, chakram, charkha, chukker, cyclus, and wheel (see there for more).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/, [ˈsaɪ.kɫ̩]
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/, [ˈsʌɪ.kəl]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑe.kəl/, [ˈsɑe.kɫ̩]
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/, [ˈsɑe̯.kɫ̩], [ˈsɑe̯.ko], [ˈsɑe̯.kʊ]
• Rhymes: -aɪkəl
• Hyphenation: cyc‧le

Noun

cycle (plural cycles)

1. An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
2. A complete rotation of anything.
4. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
5. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
6. A series of poems, songs or other works of art, typically longer than a trilogy.

7. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.

8. A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle, or a motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels.

   Hyponyms: motorbike, motorcycle, unicycle, bicycle, tricycle, motortrike

9. (baseball) A single, a double, a triple, and a home run hit by the same player in the same game.

10. (graph theory) A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
11. (topology, algebraic topology) A chain whose boundary is zero.
12. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
13. An age; a long period of time.
14. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
15. (botany) One entire round in a circle or a spire.
16. (weaponry) A discharge of a taser.
17. (aviation) One take-off and landing of an aircraft, referring to a pressurisation cycle which places stresses on the fuselage.
18. (sports) A scheduled period of time of weeks or months wherein a performance-enhancing substance or, by extension, supplement is applied, to be followed by another one where it is not or the dosage is lower.

Usage notes

• (baseball sense): As in the example sentence, one is usually said to hit for the cycle. However, other uses also occur, such as hit a cycle and complete the cycle.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: サイクル (saikuru)

Translations

Verb

cycle (third-person singular simple present cycles, present participle cycling, simple past and past participle cycled)

1. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
2. To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
3. (electronics) To turn power off and back on

4. (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

Derived terms

Related terms

• recycle

Translations

Anagrams

• leccy

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French, from Late Latin cyclus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sikl/
• Homophones: cycles, sicle, sicles

Noun

cycle m (plural cycles)

1. cycle

   cycle de l'eau ― water cycle

   cycle du carbone ― carbon cycle

2. (Switzerland) middle school, junior high school

Derived terms

• bicyclette
• cyclique
• cyclisme
• cycliste

See also

• cercle

Further reading

• “cycle”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Noun

cycle

1. vocative singular of cyclus