Cycle \Cy"cle\ (s?"k'l), n. [F. ycle, LL. cyclus, fr. Gr.
ky`klos ring or circle, cycle; akin to Skr. cakra wheel,
circle. See Wheel.]
1. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the
celestial spheres. --Milton.
2. An interval of time in which a certain succession of
events or phenomena is completed, and then returns again
and again, uniformly and continually in the same order; a
periodical space of time marked by the recurrence of
something peculiar; as, the cycle of the seasons, or of
the year.
Wages . . . bear a full proportion . . . to the
medium of provision during the last bad cycle of
twenty years. --Burke.
3. An age; a long period of time.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
--Tennyson.
4. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar. [Obs.]
We . . . present our gardeners with a complete cycle
of what is requisite to be done throughout every
month of the year. --Evelyn.
5. The circle of subjects connected with the exploits of the
hero or heroes of some particular period which have served
as a popular theme for poetry, as the legend of Arthur and
the knights of the Round Table, and that of Charlemagne
and his paladins.
6. (Bot.) One entire round in a circle or a spire; as, a
cycle or set of leaves. --Gray.
7. A bicycle or tricycle, or other light velocipede.
Calippic cycle, a period of 76 years, or four Metonic
cycles; -- so called from Calippus, who proposed it as an
improvement on the Metonic cycle.
Cycle of eclipses, a period of about 6,586 days, the time
of revolution of the moon's node; -- called Saros by the
Chaldeans.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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