Spotting vs. Period — What's the Difference?

A mark on a surface differing sharply in color from its surroundings.

An interval of time characterized by the occurrence of a certain condition, event, or phenomenon

A blemish, mark, or pimple on the skin.

An interval of time characterized by the prevalence of a specified culture, ideology, or technology

A stain or blot.

An interval regarded as a distinct evolutionary or developmental phase

A mark or pip on a playing card; a spade, club, diamond, or heart.

(Geology) A unit of time, longer than an epoch and shorter than an era.

A playing card with a specified number of such marks on it indicating its value.

Any of the divisions of the academic day.

(Informal) A piece of paper money worth a specified number of dollars

Sports & Games A division of the playing time of a game.

A small area

Physics & Astronomy The time interval between two successive occurrences of a recurrent event or phases of an event; a cycle

A location or position

See menstrual period.

A point of interest

A point or portion of time at which something is ended; a completion or conclusion.

A position or an item in an ordered arrangement

A punctuation mark ( . ) indicating a full stop, placed at the end of declarative sentences and other statements thought to be complete, and after many abbreviations.

(Football) The position of the ball for the line of scrimmage as determined by a referee after a play.

The full pause at the end of a spoken sentence.

(Informal) A situation, especially a troublesome one.

A sentence of several carefully balanced clauses in formal writing.

A flaw in one's reputation or character

A metrical unit of quantitative verse consisting of two or more cola.

A short presentation or commercial on television or radio between major programs

An analogous unit or division of classical Greek or Latin prose.

(Informal) A spotlight.

(Music) A group of two or more phrases within a composition, often made up of 8 or 16 measures and terminating with a cadence.

Pl. spot or spots A small croaker (Leiostomus xanthurus) of North American Atlantic waters, having a dark mark above each pectoral fin and valued as a food and game fish.

The least interval in the range of the independent variable of a periodic function of a real variable in which all possible values of the dependent variable are assumed.

Chiefly British A small amount; a bit

A group of digits separated by commas in a written number.

To soil with spots

The number of digits that repeat in a repeating decimal. For example, 1/7 = 0.142857142857 ... has a six-digit period.

To decorate with spots; dot.

(Chemistry) A sequence of elements arranged in order of increasing atomic number and forming one of the horizontal rows in the periodic table.

To bring disgrace to; besmirch

Of, belonging to, or representing a certain historical age or time

To place in a particular location; situate precisely

Used to emphasize finality, as when expressing a decision or an opinion

(Football) To position (the ball) determining the line of scrimmage after a play has been completed.

A length of time.

To detect or discern, especially visually; spy

A period of time in history seen as a single coherent entity; an epoch, era.

To remove spots from, as in a laundry.

The punctuation mark “.” (indicating the ending of a sentence or marking an abbreviation).

(Sports) To yield a favorable scoring margin to

(figurative) A decisive end to something; a stop.

(Sports) To act as a spotter for (a gymnast, for example).

The length of time during which the same characteristics of a periodic phenomenon recur, such as the repetition of a wave or the rotation of a planet.

(Informal) To lend

(euphemism) Female menstruation; an episode of this.

To become marked with spots

A section of an artist's, writer's (etc.) career distinguished by a given quality, preoccupation etc.

To cause a discoloration or make a stain.

Each of the divisions into which a school day is split, allocated to a given subject or activity.

To locate targets from the air during combat or training missions.

Each of the intervals, typically three, of which a game is divided.

Made, paid, or delivered immediately

One or more additional intervals to decide a tied game, an overtime period.

Of, relating to, or being a market in which payment or delivery is immediate

The length of time for a disease to run its course.

Involving random or selective instances or actions

An end or conclusion; the final point of a process etc.

Presented between major radio or television programs

(rhetoric) A complete sentence, especially one expressing a single thought or making a balanced, rhythmic whole.

Present participle of spot

(obsolete) A specific moment during a given process; a point, a stage.

A spotted pattern.

(chemistry) A row in the periodic table of the elements.

The act of spotting or sighting something.

(geology) A geochronologic unit of millions to tens of millions of years; a subdivision of an era, and subdivided into epochs.

The act of spotting or staining something

(genetics) A Drosophila gene, the gene product of which is involved in regulation of the circadian rhythm.

The act of detecting something; catching sight of something

(music) Two phrases (an antecedent and a consequent phrase).

(math) The length of an interval over which a periodic function, periodic sequence or repeating decimal repeats; often the least such length.

(archaic) End point, conclusion.

Designating anything from a given historical era. en

Evoking, or appropriate for, a particular historical period, especially through the use of elaborate costumes and scenery.

That's final; that's the end of the matter (analogous to a period ending a sentence); end of story.

To come to a period; to conclude.

To put an end to.

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.

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.

One of the great divisions of geological time; as, the Tertiary period; the Glacial period. See the Chart of Geology.

The termination or completion of a revolution, cycle, series of events, single event, or act; hence, a limit; a bound; an end; a conclusion.

A complete sentence, from one full stop to another; esp., a well-proportioned, harmonious sentence.

The punctuation point [.] that marks the end of a complete sentence, or of an abbreviated word.

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.

The time of the exacerbation and remission of a disease, or of the paroxysm and intermission.

A complete musical sentence.

To put an end to.

To come to a period; to conclude. [Obs.] "You may period upon this, that," etc.

An amount of time;

One of three periods of play in hockey games

A stage in the history of a culture having a definable place in space and time;

The interval taken to complete one cycle of a regularly repeating phenomenon

The monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from puberty to menopause;

A punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations;

A unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed;

The end or completion of something;