periphery
/pəˈɹɪf.ə.ɹi/ noun
Forms peripheries
- noun The outside boundary, parts or surface of something. “The suburbs are a city's periphery.”
- noun A first-rank administrative division of Greece, subdivided into provinces.
- noun (grammar, linguistics) The more anomalous and infrequent aspects of a language, as opposed to the frequent and regular core aspects.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French peripherie. Compare Middle English periferie (“one of three layers of atmosphere (lower, middle, and upper) believed to surround the Earth”), from the same origin, although the Modern English term most likely does not descend from it.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The outside or superficial portions of a body; the surface.
- noun The circumference of a circle, ellipse, or other figure.
Etymology [L. peripheria, Gr. périphérie.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “periphery”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details