Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete, medicine) The length of time for a disease to run its course.

An end or conclusion; the final point of a process etc.

* , II.3:

All comes to one period , whether man make an end of himselfe, or whether he endure it.

* Milton

So spake the archangel Michael; then paused, / As at the world's great period .

* Jeremy Taylor

evils which shall never end till eternity hath a period

* Shakespeare

This is the period of my ambition.

A period of time in history seen as a single coherent entity; an epoch, era.

* , chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}

(rhetoric) A complete sentence, especially one expressing a single thought or making a balanced, rhythmic whole.

* Ben Jonson

Periods are beautiful when they are not too long.

* 1644 , (John Milton), Aeropagitica :

that such iron moulds as these shall have autority to knaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will belong to that haples race of men, whose misfortune it is to have understanding.

The punctuation mark “. ” (indicating the ending of a sentence or marking an abbreviation).

A length of time.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 14, author=Steven Morris, work=Guardian

, title= Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave , passage=Philip Miles, defending, said: "This was a single instance, there was no allegation of continuing behaviour over a long period of time."}}

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.

(obsolete) A specific moment during a given process; a point, a stage.

* 1720 , Alexander Pope, translating Homer, Iliad , Book IV (note 125):

The Death of Patroclus was the most eminent Period ; and consequently the most proper Time for such Games.

Female menstruation.

A section of an artist's, writer's (etc.) career distinguished by a given quality, preoccupation etc.

Each of the divisions into which a school day is split, allocated to a given subject or activity.

(chemistry) A row in the periodic table of the elements.

(geology) A subdivision of an era, typically lasting from tens to hundreds of millions of years, see .

(genetics) A Drosophila gene which gene product is involved in regulation of the circadian rhythm.

* {{quote-journal

, title= Antibodies to the period gene product of drosophila reveal diverse tissue distribution and rhythmic changes in the visual system , volume=1, issue=2, page=141, year=1988, date=1 April, journal=Neuron , passage=Polyclonal antibodies were prepared against the period gene product, which influences biological rhythms in D. melanogaster, by using small synthetic peptides from the per sequence as immunogens.}}

* 2009 {{cite web

, date=20 November 2009 citation , title=Gene Dmel\per, format=Gene Report (database record) , work=FlyBase, publisher=The FlyBase Consortium , language=en, accessdate=7 December, accessyear=2009}}

(music) Two phrases (an antecedent]] and a [[consequent phrase, consequent phrase).

(math) One of several similar sets of figures or terms usually marked by points or commas placed at regular intervals, as in numeration, in the extraction of roots, and in recurring decimals.

Noun

(of time)

Noun

(en noun)

The fact of creating something, or bringing something into being; production, creation.

* 1832 , (Charles Lyell), Principles of Geology , II:

The generation of peat, when not completely under water, is confined to moist situations.

The act of creating a living creature or organism; procreation.

* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.10:

So all things else, that nourish vitall blood, / Soone as with fury thou doest them inspire, / In generation seek to quench their inward fire.

* 1626 , (Francis Bacon), Sylva Sylvarum :

Generation by Copulation (certainly) extendeth not to Plants.

* c. 1605 , (William Shakespeare), Timon of Athens , First Folio 1623, I.3:

Thy Mothers of my generation : what's she, if I be a Dogge?

A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or degree in genealogy, the members of a family from the same parents, considered as a single unit.

This is the book of the generations of Adam - Genesis 5:1

Ye shall remain there [in Babylon] many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations - Baruch 6:3

All generations and ages of the Christian church -

(obsolete) Descendants, progeny; offspring.

The average amount of time needed for children to grow up and have children of their own, generally considered to be a period of around thirty years, used as a measure of time.

* 2008 , Edgar Thorpe, Objective English :

Before the independence of India the books of Dr P. K. Yadav presented a fundamental challenge to the accepted ideas of race relations that, two generations later, will be true of the writings of the radical writers of the 1970s.

A set stage in the development of computing or of a specific technology.

* 2009 , Paul Deital, Harvey Deital and Abbey Deital, iPhone for Programmers :

The first-generation iPhone was released in June 2007 and was an instant blockbuster success.

(geometry) The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude; as, the generation of a line or curve by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc.

A specific age range in which each person in that range can relate culturally to one another.

Generation X grew up in the eighties, whereas the generation known as the millennials grew up in the nineties.

A version of a form of pop culture which differs from later or earlier versions.

People sometimes dispute which generation of Star Trek is best, including the original and The Next Generation.