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Cycle vs Bike - What's the difference?

cycle | bike |

As nouns the difference between cycle and bike

is that cycle is an interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed while bike is a short form of bicycle or bike can be (scotland|northern england) a nest of wasps or hornets.

As verbs the difference between cycle and bike

is that cycle is to ride a bicycle or other while bike is to ride a bike.

cycle

English

(wikipedia cycle)

Noun

(en noun)
  • An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
    • the cycle of the seasons, or of the year
  • * Burke
    • Wages to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years.
  • A complete rotation of anything.
  • A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Legal highs: A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
  • (music) In musical set theory, an interval cycle is the set of pitch classes resulting from repeatedly applying the same interval class to the starting pitch class.
  • A series of poems, songs or other works of art.
  • A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
    • the spin cycle
  • A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle; or, motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels, such as a motorbike, motorcycle, motorized tricycle, or motortrike.
  • (baseball) A single, a double, a triple, and a home run hit by the same player in the same game.
  • (graph theory) A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
  • An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
    • (Milton)
    (Burke)
  • An age; a long period of time.
  • * Tennyson
    • Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
  • An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
  • * Evelyn
    • We present our gardeners with a complete cycle of what is requisite to be done throughout every month of the year.
  • (botany) One entire round in a circle or a spire.
    • a cycle or set of leaves
    (Gray)

    Usage notes

    * (aviation sense) One take-off and landing of an aircraft is a (term), referring to a (term) which places stresses on the fuselage. * (baseball sense) As in the example sentence, one is usually said to (term). However, other uses also occur, such as (term) and (term).

    Derived terms

    * cycle path * cyclic * acyclic

    Verb

    (cycl)
  • To ride a bicycle or other .
  • To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
  • (electronics) To turn power off and back on
    • Avoid cycling the device unnecessarily.
  • (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
    • They have their cycling game going tonight.

    Related terms

    * recycle

    Anagrams

    * ----

    bike

    English

    Etymology 1

    From , by shortening, and possibly alteration. One explanation for the pronunciation is that bicycle'' is parsed to ''bi(cy)c(le).'' An alternative explanation is that ''bicycle'' is shortened to ''bic(ycle),'' and the terminal [s] is converted to a [k] because there is an underlying [k]/[s] sound, which is softened to [s] in ''bicycle'' but retained as [k] in bike ; compare the letter ‘c’ (used for [k]/[s]).'' An Etymological Brainteaser: The Shortening of Bicycle to Bike, Robert B. Hausmann, American Speech, Vol. 51, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 1976), pp. 272–274

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A short form of bicycle.
  • A short form of motorbike.
  • (slang) A promiscuous woman; from “the town bike (everybody rides her)”.
    • Synonyms
    * (motorcycle): motorbike * (woman): slapper (British''), slag (''British )
    Derived terms
    * (bicycle) cross bike; dirt bike; like riding a bike; mountain bike; road bike; utility bike * (motorcycle) biker; bikey or bikie (Australia ); quad bike * (woman) town bike, village bike
    See also
    * trike
    References

    Verb

    (bik)
  • To ride a bike.
    • I biked so much yesterday that I'm very sore today.
  • To travel by bike.
    • It was such a nice day I decided to bike to the store, though it's far enough I usually take my car.

    Etymology 2

    Origin unknown.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Scotland, Northern England) A nest of wasps or hornets.
  • *1955 , (Robin Jenkins), The Cone-Gatherers , Canongate 2012, p. 107:
  • *:he stood for a minute talking to them about their job of gathering cones, and telling them a story about a tree he'd once climbed which had a wasp's byke in it unbeknown to him.

    • Anagrams

    * * English collective nouns ----