Defn: Of or pertaining to a nucleus; situated around a nucleus; as, the perinuclear protoplasm.
PERIOD
Pe"ri*od, n. Etym: [L. periodus, Gr. période.]
1. A portion of time as limited and determined by some recurring phenomenon, as by the completion of a revolution of one of the heavenly bodies; a division of time, as a series of years, months, or days, in which something is completed, and ready to recommence and go on in the same order; as, the period of the sun, or the earth, or a comet.
2. Hence: A stated and recurring interval of time; more generally, an interval of time specified or left indefinite; a certain series of years, months, days, or the like; a time; a cycle; an age; an epoch; as, the period of the Roman republic. How by art to make plants more lasting than their ordinary period. Bacon.
3. (Geol.)
Defn: One of the great divisions of geological time; as, the Tertiary period; the Glacial period. See the Chart of Geology.
4. The termination or completion of a revolution, cycle, series of events, single event, or act; hence, a limit; a bound; an end; a conclusion. Bacon. So spake the archangel Michael; then paused, As at the world's great period. Milton. Evils which shall never end till eternity hath a period. Jer. Taylor. This is the period of my ambition. Shak.
5. (Rhet.)
Defn: A complete sentence, from one full stop to another; esp., a
well-proportioned, harmonious sentence. "Devolved his rounded
periods." Tennyson.
Periods are beautiful when they are not too long. B. Johnson.
Note: The period, according to Heyse, is a compound sentence consisting of a protasis and apodosis; according to Becker, it is the appropriate form for the coördinate propositions related by antithesis or causality. Gibbs.