Also 4, 7 cicle, 5 cikil. [a. F. cycle or ad. L. cycl-us, a. Gr. κύκλος circle.]
1. Astron. A circle or orbit in the heavens.
1631. 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 recurrent period of a definite number of years adopted for purposes of chronology. (See quot. 1788.)
Cycle of Indiction: see INDICTION.
Metonic 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. 27. The dissonaunce of þe cicles of Dionise the lesse ageyne the trawthe of gospelles. Ibid. (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 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. (1666), Introd. 4 (J.). To present our Gard’ners with a compleat Cycle of what is requisite to be done throughout every Moneth 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.
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 mythopœic 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 Gaz., 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, -horn, -man, -racing, -scout, etc.
1887. Spectator, 17 Sept., 1244. We may see the time when cycle-batteries will be a feature of every army.
1887. Globe, 19 April. ‘Cycleman’ is the latest name for the ‘Uhlan on wheels.’
1891. Bicycling News, 141. Bells and cycle-horns.
