period

noun

1. 1

   a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations

   in England they call a period a stop

2. 2

   the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from puberty to menopause

   the women were sickly and subject to excessive menstruation

   a woman does not take the gout unless her menses be stopped"--Hippocrates

3. 3

   an amount of time

   a time period of 30 years

   hastened the period of time of his recovery

4. 4

   the end or completion of something

   death put a period to his endeavors

   a change soon put a period to my tranquility

5. 5

   a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed

   ganoid fishes swarmed during the earlier geological periods

6. 6

   (ice hockey) one of three divisions into which play is divided in hockey games

7. 7

   the interval taken to complete one cycle of a regularly repeating phenomenon