Peripheral

//pəˈɹɪf(ə)ɹ(ə)l// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A peripheral device.

    "Check your peripheral's manual for the information you'll need."

  2. 2
    electronic equipment external to the circuit board that contains the CPU of a computer wordnet
  3. 3
    Peripheral vision.

    "We hailed a cab. The moment we got in, she stared at me with how-can-a-man-be-so-cruel eyes. I felt her glare, saw some of its fiery glow in my peripheral. The heat made me glance her way."

Adjective
  1. 1
    On the periphery or boundary.
  2. 2
    Beside the point.
  3. 3
    Unimportant.
  4. 4
    Auxiliary.
  5. 5
    Related to or located in the peripheral nervous system.

    "We have isolated the gene encoding the Schwann cell glycoprotein P0, the major structural protein of the peripheral myelin sheath."

Adjective
  1. 1
    on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the outer area wordnet
  2. 2
    related to the key issue but not of central importance wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
circumferentialencirclingincidentalperipheral deviceambientapparent

Example

More examples

"The words of the year 2010 in Denmark are "ash cloud", "Peripheral Denmark", "vuvuzela" and "WikiLeaks"."

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per-der. Ancient Greek περί (perí) Ancient Greek περῐ- (perĭ-) Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- Proto-Indo-European *bʰéreti Proto-Hellenic *pʰérō Ancient Greek φέρω (phérō) Ancient Greek περιφέρω (periphérō) Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-ēs Ancient Greek -ης (-ēs) Ancient Greek περιφερής (peripherḗs) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂der. Ancient Greek -ια (-ia) Ancient Greek περιφέρεια (periphéreia)bor. Latin peripheriabor. Middle French peripheriebor. English periphery Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālisbor. Old French -albor. ▲ Latin -ālis Old French -elbor. ▲ Latin -ālisbor. Middle English -al English -al English peripheral From peripher(y) + -al.

Related phrases

peripheral artery diseaseperipheral brainperipheral busperipheral membrane proteinperipheral nervous systemperipheral neuropathyperipheral oxygen saturationperipheral visionperipheral deviceperipheral nervous systemperipheral vision

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.