Word.ws English Dictionary

cycle

Syllables: cyc·leUK/ˈsaɪ.kəl//ˈsaɪ.kəl/

cycle noun: an interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.

Noun (1)

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
    • 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.1795 November (date written), Edmund Burke, Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, […], London: […] [T. Gillet] for F[rancis] and C[harles] Rivington, […]; and J[ohn] Hatchard, […], published 1800, →OCLC...
  2. A complete rotation of anything.
  3. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
    • electoral cycle menstrual cycle news cycle
    • No sooner has a [synthetic] 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.2013 August 10, “Legal highs: A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
  4. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
  5. 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.
  6. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
    • Put the washing in on a warm cycle.
    • the spin cycle
  7. 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.
  8. A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
  9. A chain whose boundary is zero.
  10. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
    • With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
    • 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.1858, [anonymous], “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...
  11. An age; a long period of time.
    • Thro' the shadow of the world we sweep into the younger day: / Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 110
  12. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
    • [H]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: […]1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], “Kalendarium Hortense: Or, The Gard’ners Almanac; […] [Introduction to the Kalendar.]”, in Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties...
Show 5 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. One entire round in a circle or a spire.
    • a cycle or set of leaves1857, Asa Gray, First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology
  2. A discharge of a taser.
    • Officers have made the mistake of applying many Taser cycles, expecting the suspect to relent.2014, R.T. Wyant, Thomas Burns, Risk Management of Less Lethal Options, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 211
  3. One take-off and landing of an aircraft, referring to a pressurisation cycle which places stresses on the fuselage.
  4. 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.
  5. (plural, usually) A hertz; cycle per second.
    • […] the Plan incorporates in proper combination every available modern technique, including extensive electrification on the new standard high-voltage a.c. system at a frequency of 50 cycles; main-line diesel traction as a half-way house to electrification; lightweight diesel trains for secondary...1958 January, 'Borderer', “Ten Years of British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 15

Verb (1)

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

  1. To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
    • When my wife and I heard a plaintive whinny from our laundry room the other day, we knew that our old dryer had cycled its last load.2026 January 16, Danny Heitman, “An empty nester’s ode to the cycles of laundry – and life”, in The Christian Science Monitor
  2. To turn power off and back on
    • Avoid cycling the device unnecessarily.
  3. 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.

Noun (2)

cycle (plural cycles)

  1. A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle, or a motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels.
    1. (specifically, usually) A bicycle.

Verb (2)

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

  1. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
    • Sometimes I would cycle over to Beckenham to watch the boat trains and Kent Coast expresses of the London, Chatham & Dover Railway, which seemed very superior to its future partner.1957 July, M. D. Greville, “A Diamond Jubilee of Railway Memories”, in Railway Magazine, pages 458-459
    • I cycled the three miles each morning between hedges draped with spangled cobwebs and berried bryony.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 216

cycle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

cycle in Hindi

interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed
अंतराल antrāl
complete rotation
चक्र cakra, चक्कर cakkar
process that repeats itself
चक्र cakra

cycle in Tamil

complete rotation
சுழற்சி cuḻaṟci
process that repeats itself
சுழற்சி cuḻaṟci
bicycle, tricycle, motorcycle etc. — see also bicycle
சைக்கிள் caikkiḷ

cycle in Marathi

cycle;
चक्र cakra

cycle in Urdu

چکر, دور, گردش, جگ
More languagesFewer languages
cycle in Bengali
মণ্ডল monḍol
cycle in Telugu
సైకిలు saikilu
cycle in Malayalam
ആവൃത്തി āvr̥tti
cycle in Kannada
ಸೈಕಲ್ saikal
cycle in Gujarati
ચક્ર
cycle in Odia
ଚକ୍ର, ଚକ୍ରଟି
cycle in Sanskrit
चक्र cakrá
cycle in Nepali
चक्र, चक्र गर्न
cycle in Arabic
دَوْر dawr, دَوْرَة dawra
cycle in Malay
kitaran
cycle in Persian
چرخ čarx, چرخه čarxe
cycle in Thai
วัฏจักร wát-dtà-jàk, wát-tà-jàk, รอบ rɔ̂ɔp, วงจร wong-jɔɔn

Examples of cycle in a sentence

  • When we were younger, we would cycle out to the beach most summer Sundays.
  • I'll have been cycling for longer than two hours by lunchtime.
  • The washer was working fine until it kicked off in the middle of a cycle.

All 40 example sentences with cycle

Forms of cycle

Noun
pluralcycles
Verb
third-person singular presentcycles
present participlecycling
past participlecycled
pastcycled

Past tense of cycle: cycled

Plural of cycle: cycles

Origin of cycle

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, kike, and wheel (see there for more).

From -cycle (in bicycle, monocycle, and tricycle), perhaps associated with etymology 1. Compare French cycle in the same sense. The verb is either from the noun or a clipping of bicycle (verb).

Words formed from cycle

Phrases with cycle

106 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with cycle

Questions about cycle

What does cycle mean?
Cycle means an interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
What is cycle in Hindi?
Cycle in Hindi is अंतराल (antrāl), चक्र (cakra), चक्कर (cakkar). See Cycle meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is cycle?
Cycle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce cycle?
Cycle is pronounced /ˈsaɪ.kəl/ (UK).
What is the plural of cycle?
The plural of cycle is cycles.

Words near cycle in the dictionary

  1. cyclative
  2. cyclazocine
  3. cyclazocines
  4. cyclazodone
  5. cyclazosin
  6. cycle
  7. cycle chord
  8. cycle chords
  9. cycle clip
  10. cycle clips
  11. cycle group

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cycle (page history and authors); चक्र (Marathi) (page history and authors); cycle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); মণ্ডল (Bengali) (page history and authors); సైకిలు (Telugu) (page history and authors); ആവൃത്തി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಸೈಕಲ್ (Kannada) (page history and authors); cycle (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cycle (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); चक्र (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); cycle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-cycle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cycle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cycle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.