Cycle

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsaɪkÉ™l/
• Rhymes: -aɪkÉ™l

Origin

From Late Latin cyclus, from Ancient Greek κύκλος, reduplicated form of a Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos ("circle, wheel"). Cognates include Sanskrit चक्र, Latin colus, Old English hwēol (English wheel), English ancillary

Full definition of cycle

Noun

1. 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
• BurkeWages ... bear a full proportion ... to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years.
2. A complete rotation of anything.
3. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
• 2013-08-10, Legal highs: A new prescription, 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.
4. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
5. (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.
   The interval cycle C4 consists of the pitch classes 0, 4 and 8; when starting on E, it is realised as the pitches E, G# and C.
6. A series of poems, songs or other works of art.
   The "Ring of the Nibelung" is a cycle of four operas by Richard Wagner, the famous nineteenth-century German composer.
7. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
   Put the washing in on a warm cycle.
   the spin cycle
8. 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.
9. (baseball) A single, a double, a triple, and a home run hit by the same player in the same game.
   Jones hit for the cycle in the game.
10. (graph theory) A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
11. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
12. An age; a long period of time.
• TennysonBetter fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
13. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
• EvelynWe ... present our gardeners with a complete cycle of what is requisite to be done throughout every month of the year.
14. (botany) One entire round in a circle or a spire.a cycle or set of leaves

Usage notes

(aviation sense) One take-off and landing of an aircraft is a cycle, referring to a pressurisation cycle which places stresses on the fuselage.

(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.

Derived terms

• cycle path
• cyclic
• acyclic

Verb

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 onAvoid cycling the device unnecessarily.
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 goalThey have their cycling game going tonight.

Related terms

• recycle

Anagrams

• leccy