cycle
English
Pronunciation
Etymology
From Late Latin cyclus, from Ancient Greek κύκλος (kyklos), reduplicated form of a Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos (“circle, wheel”). Cognates include Sanskrit चक्र (cakrá), Latin colus, Old English hwēol (English wheel), English ancillary
Noun
cycle (plural cycles)
- An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
- A complete rotation of anything.
- A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
- Put the washing in on a warm 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.
- Jones hit for the cycle in the game.
- (graph theory) A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
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.
Derived terms
Translations
vehicle — see bicycle
complete rotation
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process
series of poems etc.
program on a washing machine
Verb
cycle (third-person singular simple present cycles, present participle cycling, simple past and past participle cycled)
- To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
- 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
Translations
to ride a cycle
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to go through a cycle or to put through a cycle
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to turn power off and back on