Etymologically
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periphery

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Pronunciation

  • /pəˈɹɪf.ə.ɹi/[1]

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]

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