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periodic

adjective

Simple meaning

Happening or recurring at regular intervals.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pihreeahdik

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɪɹiˈɑdɪk

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Happening or recurring at regular intervals

  2. Occurring at regular intervals.

  3. Relative to a period or periods.

  4. Having repeated cycles.

  5. Relating to the highest oxidation state of iodine; of or derived from a periodic acid.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Happening or recurring at regular intervals

Used this way, periodic is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use periodic

  • “The periodic appearance of the seventeen-year locust.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

periodic tableperiodic acidperiodic functionperiodic paralysisperiodic motionperiodic inventoryperiodic systemperiodic boundary

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • cyclic

    Characterized by, or moving in cycles, or happening at regular intervals.

  • rhythmic

    Recurring with measured regularity.

  • periodical

    Published at regular intervals of more than one day, especially weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • periodicalnounDerived noun

    A publication that appears at fixed intervals.

  • periodicallyadverbDerived adverb

    In a sporadic manner.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • periodic eventnounCompound term

    An event that recurs at intervals.

  • periodic lawnounCompound term

    The principle that chemical properties of the elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers.

  • periodic motionnounCompound term

    Motion that recurs over and over and the period of time required for each recurrence remains the same.

  • periodic movementnounCompound term

    Motion that recurs over and over and the period of time required for each recurrence remains the same.

  • periodic sentencenounCompound term

    A complex sentence in which the main clause comes last and is preceded by the subordinate clause.

  • periodic tablenounCompound term

    A tabular arrangement of the chemical elements according to atomic number as based on the periodic law.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: happening or recurring at regular intervals

nonperiodicRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.