periphery

Etymology

It was first inherited from Middle English periferie, borrowed from Medieval Latin periferia.^[2][3][4] The 16th-century word is borrowed from Middle French peripherie (recorded from 1544) and its source borrowed from Late Latin peripheria (“circumference”).^[2][5][6] Etymonline also names Old French periferie for the first borrowing.^[7] The Latin word comes from Ancient Greek περιφέρεια (periphéreia, “circumference, rounded surface, arc of a circle”),^[2][3][8] literally "a carrying around",^[7][6] from περιφερής (peripherḗs, “rounded, revolving”), formed from περι- (peri-, “around”) and φέρω (phérō, “to carry”), after περιφέρω (periphérō, “to carry round”).^[2][7][3][9] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to carry”),^[7][4] the root of bear.^[8][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Each of the three regions of air, lower, middle and upper, which medieval cosmologists believed to surround the earth: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[2][3][7] The sense is recorded only there and is long obsolete.^[2][10][11]

Semantic evolution

The word was taken up again in 16th-century geometry for the line that bounds a figure, especially the circumference of a circle: the OED's first record is Digges's Pantometria, written about 1560 and printed in 1571,^[2][5] which Barnhart and Etymonline date by its printing.^[3][7] From 1664, in Evelyn's Sylva, it was used of the outer boundary or surface of any body,^[2] and in medicine of the outer parts of the body: Johnson (1755), who defined it simply as "circumference", quoted Harvey on humours driven "to the periphery or outward parts".^[12][2] From 1759 it meant the area around something, a fringe, and now chiefly the outlying parts of a region or system, furthest from its centre of power.^[2] The adjective peripheral followed in 1808.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1393 – each of the three regions of air around the earth (obsolete).^[2][3]
• c. 1560 – the line bounding a figure; the circumference of a circle.^[2][5] Barnhart dates the sense 1571.^[3]
• 1664 – the outer boundary or surface of a space or object.^[2]
• 1759 – the surrounding area; a fringe, an outlying region.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The outer edge or boundary of an area or object: Cafés line the periphery of the square.^[13][5][2]
2. The outer surface of something; in anatomy, the outermost part of the body or of an organ.^[13][2]
3. The outlying parts of a place, group or field, furthest from its centre or least influenced by it; the fringe: The new party remained on the periphery of politics.^[2][5]
4. (geometry) The perimeter of a closed curve, especially the circumference of a circle.^[5][2]
5. (obsolete) Each of the three layers of air once thought to surround the earth.^[2][11]

Related words

• peripheral
• circumference
• perimeter

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins