English
cycle
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈsaɪkəl/
Noun

cycle (plural cycles)

  1. An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
    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.
  2. A complete rotation of anything.
  3. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
  4. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
  5. (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.
  6. A series of poems, songs or other works of art.
    The "Ring of the Nibelung" is a cycle of four operas by Richard Wagner.
  7. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
    Put the washing in on a warm cycle.
    the spin cycle
  8. A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle, or a motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels.
    hypo en
  9. (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.
  10. (graph theory) A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
  11. (topology, algebraic topology) A chain whose boundary is zero.
  12. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
  13. An age; a long period of time.
    • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall
      Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
  14. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
    • We […] present our gardeners with a complete cycle of what is requisite to be done throughout every month of the year.
  15. (botany) One entire round in a circle or a spire.
    a cycle or set of leaves
  16. (weaponry) A discharge of a taser.
    • 2014, R.T. Wyant, Thomas Burns, Risk Management of Less Lethal Options, CRC Press (ISBN 9781466563032), page gbooks LZ9_AwAAQBAJ:
      Officers have made the mistake of applying many Taser cycles, expecting the suspect to relent.
Translations Translations Translations
  • German: Zyklus
  • Russian: цикл
Translations Translations Verb

cycle (cycles, present participle cycling; past and past participle cycled)

  1. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
  2. To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
  3. (electronics) To turn power off and back on
    Avoid cycling the device unnecessarily.
  4. (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
  • French: faire du vélo
  • German: Rad fahren, radfahren
  • Portuguese: andar de bicicleta
  • Russian: е́здить на велосипед


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