Number & MeasureGreek → English
Cycle
/ˈsaɪkəl/noun
A sequence of events that repeats in the same order.
The Greek roots
κύκλος
kýklos
circle, wheel, ring
Literally: “circle”
Follow a root:κύκλος14 words
The story of the word
The word reached English in the fourteenth century meaning a span of years that comes round again, the astronomers' cycle of the Moon. The machine sense is much later and arrived backwards: French made bicyclette in the 1860s and English clipped cycle out of bicycle within a decade. The Cyclops is built from the same noun, his single eye being round.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
bicycleencyclopediacyclonecyclops
In a sentence
The whole cycle repeats every nineteen years, which is why the dates drift.