periodical
Americannoun
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periodicals
plural
adjective
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published at regularly recurring intervals.
-
of or relating to such publications.
noun
adjective
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of or relating to such publications
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published at regular intervals
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periodic or occasional
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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periodicalismnoun
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periodicalistnoun
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periodicalnessnoun
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nonperiodicaladjective
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unperiodicaladjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of periodical
First recorded in 1595–1605; periodic 1 + -al 1
Explanation
If your weekend ritual includes reading the Sunday paper from front to back and then comparing stories in the latest celebrity gossip magazines, you appreciate periodicals, publications that come out on a regular basis. The word periodical is related to period, as in a certain length of time. Periodicals are published with regular lengths of time between issues and are described by that length of time, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual. They may be meant for a general audience like the ones you find on the magazine stand in the airport, or they may be more specialized for readers with specific interests, such as The Journal of the Society for Penguin Appreciation or Window Washer Gazette.
Vocabulary lists containing periodical
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
An entire notebook is devoted to The Spectator, a daily periodical that ran for 555 issues between 1711 and 1712 commenting on the manners and fads of London society.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2025
“Have they read the harrowing history of their ancestors’ bondage in Egypt to no purpose?” one writer in a Jewish periodical asked of pro-slavery Jews.
From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2025
The first periodical in Southern California was bilingual: the Los Angeles Star, which began publishing in 1851.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2024
Several editors at the Columbia Law Review described the board’s intervention as an unprecedented breach of editorial independence at the periodical, which is run by students at Columbia Law School.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
She went about her business, sitting at the table writing an article for her periodical, a furrow of fierce concentration on her face.
From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz
We learn that Renoir’s scenes of contemporary life often served as illustrations for books and periodicals, and discover the influence of the requirements of reproduction on his technique.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 20, 2025
For example, the University of Chicago now spends more than $100,000 annually on buying books and periodicals through the Library of Congress field office in Delhi.
From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2024
At central Amsterdam’s landmark Athanaeum bookstore, whose eclectic periodicals draw a loyal clientele from across Europe, customers and staff alike were briefly mystified by the long queues at a nearby koekmakerij — a cookie shop.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2024
High-end niche periodicals are popping up, but the trend might be most evident in a burst of small-batch, independent outdoors magazines like Adventure Journal, Mountain Gazette, Summit Journal and Ori.
From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2024
Did he happen on the article by the Norwegian physicist Rolf Wideroe while “glancing over current periodicals in the University library,” as he related in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech?
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
