▪ I. cycle, n.
(ˈsaɪk(ə)l)
Also 4, 7 cicle, 5 cikil.
[a. F. cycle or ad. L. cycl-us, a. Gr. κύκλος circle.]
I. 1. Astron. A circle or orbit in the heavens.
| 1631 R. Brathwait Whimzies 13 Horizons, Hemispheares..Astrolabes, Cycles, Epicycles, are his usuall dialect. 1667 Milton P.L. viii. 84 How gird the Sphear With Centric and Eccentric scribl'd o're, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb. |
| fig. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. iii. viii, What infinitely larger Cycle (of Causes) our little Epicycle revolves on. |
2. a. A recurrent period of a definite number of years adopted for purposes of chronology. (See quot. 1788.)
cycle of indiction: see indiction.
Metonic cycle or lunar cycle: a cycle of 19 years, established by the Greek astronomer Meton, and used for determining the date of Easter.
solar cycle: a period of 28 years, at the end of which the days of the week (according to the Julian Calendar) recur on the same days of the month.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 271 The dissonaunce of þe cicles of Dionise the lesse ageyne the trawthe of gospelles. 1398 ― Barth. De P.R. ix. iv. (1495) 349 The Cycle and course of the mone conteyneth twelue comyn yeres and seuen yeres Embolismalis. c 1425 Wyntoun Cron. ix. xxiii. 5 Ðe cikil of our Salvatioune Ðat is þe Annuntiatiowne. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iv. xii. 211 Of months, of years, Olympiades, Lustres, Indictions, Cycles, Jubilies, &c. 1656 Blount Glossogr. s.v., This revolution is called the Cycle of the Sun, taking name from Sunday, the letter whereof (called therefore Dominical) it appoints for every yeer. 1788 Priestley Lect. Hist. iii. xiv. 111 The greatest difficulty in chronology has been to accommodate the two methods of computing time by the course of the moon and that of the sun to each other..This gave birth to many cycles in use among the ancients. 1844 Lingard Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858) I. i. 47 The Roman church, about the middle of the sixth century, adopted a new cycle, which had been lately composed by Dionysius Exiguus...But the British churches..continued to use the ancient cycle. |
b. gen. A period in which a certain round of events or phenomena is completed, recurring in the same order in succeeding periods of the same length.
| 1662 Petty Taxes 24 The cycle within which dearths and plenties make their revolution. 1795 Burke On Scarcity Wks. VII. 379 Wages..bear a full proportion..to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years. 1836 J. H. Newman in Lyra Apost. (1849) 185 The world has cycles in its course, when all That once has been, is acted o'er again. 1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) I. iii. 96 One of those curious cycles which so often come round in human affairs. |
c. A long indefinite period of time; an age.
| 1842 Tennyson Locksley Hall 184 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xix, After many years—ages, centuries, cycles perhaps. |
3. a. A recurrent round or course (of successive events, phenomena, etc.); a regular order or succession in which things recur; a round or series which returns upon itself.
| 1664 Evelyn Kal. Hort. (J.), To present our gardeners with a complete cycle of what is requisite to be done throughout every month of the year. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. II. 824 The Caroline Cycle [for the election of Proctors] being still kept back a year. 1861 M. Pattison Ess. (1889) I. 47 A committee of nine members, in which every Hanse town was in its turn represented, according to a fixed cycle. 1875 Lyell Princ. Geol. II. iii. xxxvii. 329 The whole cycle of changes returns into itself, just as do the metamorphoses of an insect. |
b. Physics, etc. A recurring series of operations or states, spec. in internal combustion engines. Also, short for cycles per second (abbrev. C.P.S., cps., c/s), the unit of frequency of an oscillation (as an alternating current, a sound wave, etc.).
| a 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl. 382/2 The complete cycle of motions in the Otto engine is accomplished only by two complete revolutions of the working shaft, or four strokes of the piston. 1887 Encyl. Brit. XXII. 479/2 Generally in heat-engines the working substance returns periodically to the same state of temperature, pressure, volume, and physical condition. When this has occurred the substance is said to have passed through a complete cycle of operations. 1893 T. O'C. Sloane Standard Electr. Dict. 175 Cycle of alternation, a full period of alternation of an alternating current. It begins properly at the zero line, goes to a maximum value in one sense and returns to zero, goes to maximum in the other sense and returns to zero. 1920 Whittaker's Electr. Engineer's Pocket-Bk. (ed. 4) 348 In the early days, when electricity was used only for lighting, frequencies round about 100 cycles were usual. 1929 A. F. Collins Aviation 148 After the power stroke is completed three more strokes must take place before there is another explosion stroke and, hence, another power stroke. Then the series of strokes, or cycle, as it is called, begins all over again, and this is what is meant by a four-stroke cycle engine. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 206/1 C.P.S., cps., c/s, abbrevs. for cycles per second, the usual measure of frequency. 1944 A. Wood Physics of Music iv. 42 The lowest frequencies used in the orchestra are those of the double bass and the bass tuba, which lie between 60 and 80 cycles per second... Tones of male speech embrace a range of from 120 to 8000 c.p.s. 1959 Consumer Rep. (N.Y.) Sept. 452/2 Only one [tweeter] provided adequate and relatively uniform power in the high-frequency range to beyond 20,000 cps. 1965 Electronics Weekly 10 Mar. 22/5 It operates from a standard single phase 50 c/s supply. 1967 Electronics 6 Mar. 325/1 Markus continues to use ‘cycles per second’ instead of ‘hertz’. |
c. Geol. cycle of erosion, sedimentation (see quots.).
| 1904 Chamberlin & Salisbury Geol. (1905) I. iii. 78 It has now been seen that by whatever method erosion by running water proceeds..the final result of subaërial erosion must be the production of a base-level... The time involved in the reduction of a land area to base-level is a cycle of erosion. 1921 L. D. Stamp in Geol. Mag. LVIII. 109 A ‘cycle of sedimentation’ comprises the deposits of a complete oscillation of the basin, each oscillation including a positive phase of marine invasion and a negative phase of regression. 1960 ― Britain's Struct. & Scenery (ed. 5) vii. 70 As the cycle of erosion progresses..features which are due to varying resistance of the rocks..gradually become eliminated as the surface is reduced to a monotonous level..plain. |
4. gen. A round, course, or period through which anything runs in order to its completion; a single complete period or series of successive events, etc.
| 1821 Shelley Adonais xxvii, Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere. 1845–6 Trench Huls. Lect. Ser. i. iv. 66 The cycle of God's teaching is complete. 1869 J. Martineau Ess. II. 230 Doctrines which have run their cycle. |
5. A complete set or series; a circle, a round.
| 1662 Evelyn Chalcogr. B b, To compile, and publish a Compleat Cycle and Hystory of Trades. 1678 Wood Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) II. 401 Vide the printed cycle for names of collectors and how many admitted. 1829 Scott Demonol. iv. 121 [He] figures among a cycle of champions. a 1836 Godwin Ess. (1873) 217 The most intolerable sentence in the whole cycle of religious morality. |
6. spec. A series of poems or prose romances, collected round or relating to a central event or epoch of mythic history and forming a continuous narrative; as the Arthurian cycle. Also transf.
Originally used in the Epic cycle [Gr. ὁ (ἐπικὸς) κύκλος], the series of epic poems written by later poets (Cyclic poets) to complete Homer, and presenting (with the Iliad and Odyssey) a continuous history of the Trojan war and of all the heroes engaged in it.
| 1835 Thirlwall Greece I. vi. 248 They..formed the basis or nucleus of the epic cycle. 1837 Penny Cycl. IX. 470/1 Those cycles of metrical romances which have for their subjects the exploits of Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and other heroes. 1870 Swinburne Ess. & Stud. (1875) 66 The marvellous opening cycle of twenty-eight sonnets. 1873 H. Morley First Sk. Eng. Lit. 61 The cycle of the Charlemagne romances..those of the Arthurian cycle. 1874 H. R. Reynolds John Bapt. i. §6. 56 The mythopoeic faculty has not engendered a cycle of miracles around the simple story. |
7. Med. [L. cyclus.] With the ‘methodic’ physicians: A course of remedies, hygienic and medicinal, continued during a fixed series of days.
| 1882 Syd. Soc. Lex. s.v. Cyclus, Cælius Aurelianus distinguished three kinds of cycles or periods..The cycle was resumed several times if needed. |
8. Bot. A complete turn of the spire recognized in the theory of spiral leaf-arrangement.
| 1857 Henfrey Bot. 41 The series of leaves included by the spiral line in passing from the first leaf to that which stands directly above it is called a cycle. |
9. Zool. In corals, a set of septa of equal length.
| 1877 Huxley Anat. Inv. Anim. iii. 164 The septa in the adult Hexacoralla..of the same lengths are members of one ‘cycle’; and the cycles are numbered according to the lengths of the septa, the longest being counted as the first. In the young, six equal septa constitute the first cycle. |
10. Math. a. Geom. A closed path in a cyclic or multiply-connected region. b. (See quot. 1893.)
| 1881 Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 16 Every new line completes a loop or closed path, or, as we shall call it, a cycle. 1893 Forsyth Theory of Functions 593 In the theory of Substitution-Groups the set of homologous corners of a given region is called a cycle. |
II. 11. [An abbreviation, familiar and conveniently inclusive, of bicycle and tricycle; but Gr. κύκλος ‘circle’ also meant ‘wheel’.] A bicycle, tricycle, or other machine of the kind.
| [1870 Nat. Hist. Bicycles in Belgravia Feb. 443 Another idea for a monocycle (which, by the way, might be called a ‘cycle’ at once, for shortness).] 1881 Pall Mall G. 23 June 10/2 The ‘spider wheel’..marks the commencement of the present era of 'cycles. 1882 Standard 1 May 3/7 To tax ‘Cycles’ for the benefit of those who have carriages. |
12. attrib. and Comb. (chiefly in sense 11), as cycle-battery, cycle-horn, cycle-man, cycle-racing, cycle-scout, cycle-shop, cycle-track, etc.; cycle-car, a light motor-driven vehicle with three (rarely four) wheels; cycle-clip = bicycle-clip; cycleway, a path or lane for the (usu. exclusive) use of bicycles; cf. bikeway s.v. bike n.2 2 b.
| 1887 Spectator 17 Sept. 1244 We may see the time when *cycle-batteries will be a feature of every army. |
| 1913 (title) The autocyle, side car and *cycle car user. 1914 Morn. Post 9 Feb. 5 A Cyclecar Paperchase. 1954 ‘N. Shute’ Slide Rule 12 A little car built of motor bicycle components, then known as a cyclecar. |
| 1939–40 Army & Navy Stores Catal. p. xxxi/1 *Cycle clips. 1955 P. Larkin Less Deceived 28 Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence. |
| 1891 Bicycling News 141 Bells and *cycle-horns. |
| 1887 Globe 19 Apr., ‘*Cycleman’ is the latest name for the ‘Uhlan on wheels’. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 153 Rover *cycleshop. |
| 1916 ― Portrait of Artist iv. 182 Some jesuits were walking round the *cycletrack. 1936 Min. Transport Circ. 454 (Roads) 2 Separate cycle tracks will often be justified solely on the grounds of public safety. 1963 Ann. Reg. 1962 449 Extensive use was made of cycle tracks and pedestrian footpaths for segregating traffic about other parts of the town. |
| 1899 Sci. Amer. 13 May 296/3 Mr. Horace M. Dobbins, of Pasadena, organized what is known as the ‘California *Cycleway Company’. 1963 Times 13 Dec. 15/4 Professor Buchanan might well consider again some adaptation of the Stevenage ‘cycleways’ experiment. 1972 Oxford Times 27 Oct. 3 Cycleways could be introduced in many parts of Oxford. 1983 M. W. Jones Snickelways of York 10/2 The York City Council bestowed upon the street the status of cycleway. |
▸ Baseball. The act of hitting each of a single, double, triple, and home run in a single game. Esp. in to hit for the cycle: to accomplish this (also in extended use).
| 1929 Washington Post 17 Nov. m23/2 To Joe Cronin fell the honor of being the only batsman to hit for the cycle during the season..gathering a single, a double, a triple, and a home run. 1975 N.Y. Times 13 Aug. 39/7 Chambliss..walked in the eighth when a home run would have given him the ‘cycle’. 1992 P. Lefcourt Dreyfus Affair xvi. 159 Why not have it all? Hit for the cycle. 2000 P. Goldenbock Spirit of Saint Louis vii. 46 Twice in 1887 he hit for the cycle. |
▸ cycle helmet n. chiefly Brit. a light safety helmet for cyclists.
| 1984 Times 7 Sept. 11/7 A report from a road safety working party will recommend..a British Standard for *cycle helmets. 2003 Southland (N.Z.) Times (Electronic ed.) 17 May Police said the girl could thank her parents for being so insistent about her wearing a cycle helmet, otherwise she would have suffered life-threatening injuries. |
▸ cycle lane n. chiefly Brit. = bicycle lane n. at bicycle n. Additions.
| 1934 Times 17 Dec. 22/2, I think that their protests against experimental *cycle lanes was [sic] perhaps a little perverse. 2001 B. Broady In this Block there lives Slag 171 A rusty council van..was pulling out—without indicating... I shaded into the cycle lane to let it pass. |
▸ cycle path n. = bicycle path n. at bicycle n. Additions.
| 1896 Cent. Mag. Sept. 787/1 In the State of New York the legislature has made special provision for the construction of *cycle-paths in several of the interior counties. 1966 E. Kyle Love is for Living iv. 32 A cycle-path ran by the side of the road. 2001 K. Sampson Outlaws (2002) 272 The only sticky bit comes past the Leasowe dunes where the wind has piled the sand in over the cycle path. |
▸ cycle shorts n. chiefly Brit. = cycling shorts n. at cycling n. and adj. Additions.
| 1985 Times 22 Oct. 15/1 A fast-paced feminine collection which put *cycle shorts under elongated knit tunics. 2003 Irish Voice (Nexis) 4 Mar. 26 Sore bottoms are still an occupational hazard, but a pair of padded cycle shorts or a gel saddle cover can work wonders. |
▪ II. cycle, v.
(ˈsaɪk(ə)l)
[f. prec. n. Cf. Gr. κυκλεῖν to go round and round.]
1. intr. To move or revolve in cycles; to pass through cycles.
| 1842 Tennyson Two Voices 348 It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xiv. 490 Whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity. |
2. To ride a bicycle or tricycle, to travel by cycle.
| 1883 [see cycling vbl. n.]. 1891 Cycl. Tour. Club Gaz. Dec. 340 On landing at Dieppe [he] would cycle or train, according to the state of the weather. |
▪ III. cycle
obs. form of shekel, sickle.