peripheral
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
On or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
periferuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɚˈɪfɚəl
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
On or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the outer area
On the periphery or boundary.
Unimportant.
Beside the point.
Auxiliary.
noun
Peripheral vision.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: On or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the outer area
Used this way, peripheral 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 peripheral
- “Disk drives and printers are important peripherals.”noun
- “Russia's peripheral provinces.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Electronic
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The outside boundary or surface of something.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Electronic equipment external to the circuit board that contains the CPU of a computer.
The section of the nervous system lying outside the brain and spinal cord.
Vision at the edges of the visual field using only the periphery of the retina.
Electronic equipment external to the circuit board that contains the CPU of a computer.
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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.