period

Definition: (1) A punctuation mark ( . ) indicating a full stop, placed at the end of declarative sentences and other statements thought to be complete, and after many abbreviations.
(2) A sentence of several carefully balanced clauses in formal writing. See periodic sentence.

Etymology:

From the Greek, "circuit, way round"

Examples and Observations:

• "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
  (Dorothy Parker)



• "I'm as pure as the driven slush."
  (Tallulah Bankhead)



• "I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake--which I also keep handy."
  (W. C. Fields)



• "We can't be politically correct--right or left--in the war on terrorism. Period."
  (David Hunt)



• "Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on 'West-Running Brook.'"
  (Joseph Brodsky)



• "There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough."
  (William K. Zinsser, On Writing Well, 2006)



• "I think everyone needs to be a role model, period."
  (Barry Bonds)



• "Generally speaking, one might say that the period expresses a complete thought self-sufficiently; beyond this, it must have at least two members. . . . 'Periodic sentence' is a very rough English equivalent; it describes a long sentence that consists of a number of elements, often balanced or antithetical, and existing in perfectly clear syntactic relationship to one another. The phrase 'suspended syntax' is often used to describe it, since the syntactical pattern, and so the sense, is not completed, is 'suspended,' until the end."
  (Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, University of California Press, 1991)

Pronunciation: PEER-ee-ed

Also Known As: (1) full stop(chiefly British), full point
(2) ambitus, comprehensio, conclusion, continuatio, hirmus, periodic sentence