cycle

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cycle

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From Middle English cicle (“fixed length period of years”), from Late Latin cyclus, from Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos, “circle”), from Proto-Hellenic *kúklos, *kʷókʷlos, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos (“circle, wheel”).

Doublet of chakra, chakram, charkha, chukker, cyclus, and wheel (see there for more).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/,
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/,

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑe.kəl/,
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.kəl/, , ,
• Rhymes: -aɪkəl
• Hyphenation: cyc‧le

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

   • 1795 November (date written), Edmund Burke, Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, , London: ">…] for F and C Rivington, ; and J Hatchard, , published 1800, →OCLC, page 6:

     VVages have been tvvice raiſed in my time, and they bear a full proportion, or even a greater than formerly, to the medium of proviſion during the laſt bad cycle of tvventy years.

2. A complete rotation of anything.
4. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.

   electoral cycle    menstrual cycle    news cycle

   • 2013 August 10, “Legal highs: A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.

   • 2023 May 8, Jonathan Head, “Thailand election: The young radicals shaking up politics”, in BBC News (World)‎:

     Ice is one of a slate of young, idealistic candidates for Move Forward who have joined mainstream politics in the hope that this election allows Thailand to break the cycle of military coups

5. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
6. A series of poems, songs or other works of art, typically longer than a trilogy.

   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.

   Hyponyms: motorbike, motorcycle, unicycle, bicycle, tricycle, motortrike

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.
    • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. , London: ">…] , and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

      With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb

    • 1858, , “Appendix”, in Edmund Burke, The Inherent Evils of All State Governments Demonstrated; Being a Reprint of Edmund Burke’s Celebrated Essay, Entitled “A Vindication of Natural Society:” , London: Holyoake and Company, , →OCLC, page 54:

      There appears to be no absolute cycle in the universe; all is change and progression. No planet ever revolves twice precisely in the same orbit.

13. An age; a long period of time.
    • 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems.  In Two Volumes.">…], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, , published 1842, →OCLC, page 110:

      Thro' the shadow of the world we sweep into the younger day: / Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

14. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
    • 1664, J E, “Kalendarium Hortense: Or, The Gard’ners Almanac; ”, in Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. , London: Jo Martyn, and Ja Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, , →OCLC, page 56:

      ere we endeavour to preſent our Gard'ners with a compleat Cycle of what is requiſite to be done throughout every Moneth of the Year:

15. (botany) One entire round in a circle or a spire.
    • 1857, Asa Gray, First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology:

      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, page 211:

      Officers have made the mistake of applying many Taser cycles, expecting the suspect to relent.

17. (aviation) One take-off and landing of an aircraft, referring to a pressurisation cycle which places stresses on the fuselage.
18. (sports) A scheduled period of time of weeks or months wherein a performance-enhancing substance or, by extension, supplement is applied, to be followed by another one where it is not or the dosage is lower.

    The deterioration of his physique may be a result of his being off cycle.

• (baseball sense): As in the example sentence, one is usually said to hit for the cycle. However, other uses also occur, such as hit a cycle and complete the cycle.

• → Japanese: サイクル (saikuru)

cycle (third-person singular simple present cycles, present participle cycling, simple past and past participle cycled)

1. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 216:

     I cycled the three miles each morning between hedges draped with spangled cobwebs and berried bryony.

   • 2021 July 28, Christian Wolmar, “Forgotten by the railways, but ripe for the exploring”, in RAIL, number 936, page 35:

     Well, during our short staycation at Humberston Fitties, just south of Cleethorpes, we cycled through the very unspoilt Lincolnshire Wolds, which are by no means flat and boring as conventional wisdom about the county suggests.

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.

• recycle

• leccy

Inherited from Middle French, from Late Latin cyclus.

• IPA^(key): /sikl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: cycles, sicle, sicles

cycle m (plural cycles)

1. cycle

   cycle de l'eau ― water cycle

   cycle du carbone ― carbon cycle

2. (Switzerland) middle school, junior high school

• bicyclette
• cyclique
• cyclisme
• cycliste

• cercle

• “cycle”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

cycle

1. vocative singular of cyclus