What's the difference between period and spell?

Period


Definition:

  • (n.) A portion of time as limited and determined by some recurring phenomenon, as by the completion of a revolution of one of the heavenly bodies; a division of time, as a series of years, months, or days, in which something is completed, and ready to recommence and go on in the same order; as, the period of the sun, or the earth, or a comet.
  • (n.) A stated and recurring interval of time; more generally, an interval of time specified or left indefinite; a certain series of years, months, days, or the like; a time; a cycle; an age; an epoch; as, the period of the Roman republic.
  • (n.) One of the great divisions of geological time; as, the Tertiary period; the Glacial period. See the Chart of Geology.
  • (n.) The termination or completion of a revolution, cycle, series of events, single event, or act; hence, a limit; a bound; an end; a conclusion.
  • (n.) A complete sentence, from one full stop to another; esp., a well-proportioned, harmonious sentence.
  • (n.) The punctuation point [.] that marks the end of a complete sentence, or of an abbreviated word.
  • (n.) One of several similar sets of figures or terms usually marked by points or commas placed at regular intervals, as in numeration, in the extraction of roots, and in circulating decimals.
  • (n.) The time of the exacerbation and remission of a disease, or of the paroxysm and intermission.
  • (n.) A complete musical sentence.
  • (v. t.) To put an end to.
  • (v. i.) To come to a period; to conclude. [Obs.] "You may period upon this, that," etc.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Without medication atypical ventricular tachycardia develops, in the author's opinion, most probably when bradycardia has persisted for a prolonged period.
  • (2) Disease stabilisation was associated with prolonged periods of comparatively high plasma levels of drug, which appeared to be determined primarily by reduced drug clearance.
  • (3) Although the mean values for all hemodynamic variables between the two placebo periods were minimally changed, the differences in individual patients were striking.
  • (4) It was shown in experiments on four dogs by the conditioned method that the period of recovery of conditioned activity after one hour ether anaesthesia tested 7 to 7.5 days.
  • (5) Under blood preservation conditions the difference of the rates of ATP-production and -consumption is the most important factor for a high ATP-level over long periods.
  • (6) No significant change occurred in the bacterial population of our hospital unit during the period of the study (more than 3 years).
  • (7) The secondary leukemia that occurred in these patients could be distinguished from the secondary leukemia that occurs after treatment with alkylating agents by the following: a shorter latency period; a predominance of monocytic or myelomonocytic features; and frequent cytogenetic abnormalities involving 11q23.
  • (8) Sixteen patients in whom schizophrenia was initially diagnosed and who were treated with fluphenazine enanthate or decanoate developed severe depression for a short period after the injection.
  • (9) During the study period four family outbreaks and seven recurrences of infection were observed.
  • (10) After a period on fat-rich diet the patient's physical fitness was increased and the recovery period after the acute load was shorter.
  • (11) During this period he developed autoimmune haemolytic anaemia, a rare complication of myelofibrosis.
  • (12) Pituitary weight, mitotic index and chromosomes were studied in male rats following a single or repeated dose of estradiol-benzoate for a total period of 210 days.
  • (13) Most thyroid hormone actions, however, appear in the perinatal period, and infants with thyroid agenesis appear normal at birth and develop normally with prompt neonatal diagnosis and treatment.
  • (14) Maximal aberration yields were observed for 2,4-diaminotoluene, 2,6-diaminotoluene and cytosine beta-D-arabinofuranoside from 17 to 21 h, eugenol from 15 to 21 h, cadmium sulfate from 15 to 24 h and 2-aminobiphenyl, from 17 to 24 h. For adriamycin at 1 microM, the % aberrant cells remained elevated throughout the period from 9 to 29 h, while small increases at 0.1 microM ADR were found only at 13 and at 25 h. For most chemicals the maximal aberration yield occurred at a different time for each concentration tested.
  • (15) Accuracy of discrimination of letters at various preselected distances was determined each session while Ortho-rater examinations were given periodically throughout training.
  • (16) During electrophysiologic study, the effect of propafenone on the effective refractory period of the accessory pathway was determined, as well as its effect during orthodromic atrioventricular (AV) reentrant tachycardia and atrial fibrillation.
  • (17) Time-series analysis and multiple-regression modeling procedures were used to characterize changes in the overall incidence rate over the study period and to describe the contribution of additional measures to the dynamics of the incidence rates.
  • (18) Throughout the period of rehabilitation, the frequent changes of a patient's condition may require a process of ongoing evaluation and appropriate adjustments in the physical therapy program.
  • (19) Anthropometric and nutritional (serum albumin and transferrin) values were normal in both groups both at the beginning and at the end of the treatment period.
  • (20) Analysis of conjugated discharges ACHs showed that they appeared predominantly periodically (87% of cases).

Spell


Definition:

  • (n.) A spelk, or splinter.
  • (v. t.) To supply the place of for a time; to take the turn of, at work; to relieve; as, to spell the helmsman.
  • (n.) The relief of one person by another in any piece of work or watching; also, a turn at work which is carried on by one person or gang relieving another; as, a spell at the pumps; a spell at the masthead.
  • (n.) The time during which one person or gang works until relieved; hence, any relatively short period of time, whether a few hours, days, or weeks.
  • (n.) One of two or more persons or gangs who work by spells.
  • (n.) A gratuitous helping forward of another's work; as, a logging spell.
  • (n.) A story; a tale.
  • (n.) A stanza, verse, or phrase supposed to be endowed with magical power; an incantation; hence, any charm.
  • (v. t.) To tell; to relate; to teach.
  • (v. t.) To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.
  • (v. t.) To constitute; to measure.
  • (v. t.) To tell or name in their proper order letters of, as a word; to write or print in order the letters of, esp. the proper letters; to form, as words, by correct orthography.
  • (v. t.) To discover by characters or marks; to read with difficulty; -- usually with out; as, to spell out the sense of an author; to spell out a verse in the Bible.
  • (v. i.) To form words with letters, esp. with the proper letters, either orally or in writing.
  • (v. i.) To study by noting characters; to gain knowledge or learn the meaning of anything, by study.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We outline a protocol for presenting the diagnosis of pseudoseizure with the goal of conveying to the patient the importance of knowing the nonepileptic nature of the spells and the need for psychiatric follow-up.
  • (2) The government did not spell out the need for private holders of bank debt to take any losses – known as haircuts – under its plans but many analysts believe that this position is untenable.
  • (3) The tasks which appeared to present the most difficulties for the patients were written spelling, pragmatic processing tasks like sentence disambiguation and proverb interpretation.
  • (4) John Carver witnessed signs of much-needed improvement from the visitors in a purposeful spell either side of the interval but it was not enough to prevent a fifth successive Premier League defeat.
  • (5) The lesson, spelled out by Oak Creek's mayor, Steve Saffidi, was that it shouldn't have taken a tragedy for Sikhs, or anyone else, to find acceptance.
  • (6) Likud warned: “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Arab states feared that his dream of a borderless Middle East spelled Israeli economic colonialism by stealth.
  • (7) This could spell disaster for small farmers, says Million Belay, co-ordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa.
  • (8) In addition to expected differences in spelling and reading, probands obtained significantly (P less than or equal to .01) lower scores than controls on tests of other cognitive abilities.
  • (9) Despite fulfilling a boyhood wish to play for Milan when he returned to Italy, the striker admitted he erred in taking his career back to Serie A, having had a controversial spell at Internazionale before City recruited him for £17.5m in August 2010.
  • (10) Yesterday, John McDonnell spelled out the new Labour leadership’s public investment-driven economic alternative to austerity.
  • (11) Recognition memory was assessed by asking subjects to indicate which words from a longer list were presented during the spelling test.
  • (12) It was a spell in which the Dutch were in the ascendancy.
  • (13) When I wrote this week's public manager column pointing out that there are still too few women in senior public sector leadership roles, it didn't occur to me that I would have to spell out the reasons why it might be a good idea to have a few more women in top positions.
  • (14) Sigurdsson joined Reading as a youngster in 2005, and had loan spells at Crewe and Shrewsbury before breaking into the first team.
  • (15) Slow speech development occurred frequently in developmental and acquired spelling dysgraphic children.
  • (16) True, that comment was made early in Guardiola’s spell as Bayern manager and perhaps it was just a way of endearing himself to his new captain, but there is no doubt the former Barcelona manager adores Lahm.
  • (17) Since ALS occurs mostly in older age groups, this brings up the possibility that aging changes in the brain could play a causative role in the origin of such spells.
  • (18) A long spell of ultra-low interest rates has not driven a rise in inequality in the UK, the deputy governor of the Bank of England has said, rebuffing criticism that central bank policy had hurt some households.
  • (19) 3.05pm BST The Russian foreign ministry has again spelled out Sergei Lavrov's objections to threatening Syria with force if it doesn't comply with the chemical weapons agreement.
  • (20) However, when spelling ability was investigated, a heritability of 0.53 was obtained, increasing to 0.75 when intelligence was controlled.