[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

peripheral \periph"eral\, a.
   1. of or pertaining to a periphery; constituting a periphery;
      peripheric.
      1913 webster

   2. anat. external; away from the center; on or near the
      surface; as, the peripheral portion of the nervous system.
      1913 webster

   3. pertaining to minor, unimportant, superficial, or
      irrelevant aspects of the matter in question; as,
      peripheral isssues are dealt with in the appendix.
      pjc peripheric

[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

peripheral
     adj 1: on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the
            outer area; "russia's peripheral provinces";
            "peripheral suburbs" ant: central
     2: related to the key issue but not of central importance; "a
        peripheral interest"; "energy is far from a peripheral
        issue in the economy"; "peripheral issues"
     n : computer science electronic equipment connected by cable
         to the cpu of a computer; "disk drives and printers are
         important peripherals" syn: computer peripheral, peripheral
         device
see also:
central computer peripheral peripheral device 

[3] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

56 moby thesaurus words for "peripheral":
   ambient, apparent, beside the point, circling, circumambient,
   circumferential, circumflex, circumfluent, circumfluous,
   circumjacent, cortical, delineatory, embracing, encircling,
   enclosing, encompassing, enfolding, enveloping, environing,
   epidermic, exomorphic, exterior, external, extrinsic, fringe,
   in outline, incidental, inessential, irrelevant, minor,
   neighboring, open, out, outer, outermost, outlined, outlying,
   outmost, outside, outstanding, outward, outward-facing, perimetric,
   public, roundabout, secondary, seeming, suburban, superficial,
   surface, surrounding, tangential, unessential, unimportant,
   unnecessary, wrapping

[4] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

peripheral
     
         or "peripheral device", "device" any part of a
        computer other than the cpu or working memory,
        i.e. disks, keyboards, monitors, mice, printers,
        scanners, tape drives, microphones, speakers,
        cameras, to list just the less exotic ones.
     
        high speed working memory, such as ram, rom or, in the
        old days, core would not normally be referred to as
        peripherals.  the more modern term "device" is also more
        general in that it is used for things such as a pseudo-tty,
        a ram drive, or a network adaptor.
     
        some argue that, since the advent of the personal computer,
        the motherboard, hard disk, keyboard, mouse, and monitor
        are all parts of the base system, and only use the term
        "peripheral" for optional additional components.
     
        2002-09-03
     
     
see also:
cpu working memory disks keyboards monitors mice 
printers scanners tape drives microphones speakers 
cameras memory ram rom core 
pseudo-tty ram drive network adaptor personal computer motherboard 
hard disk 

Peripheral >> P Words
Peripheral, definition of term: Peripheral
peripheral_pag1.html

Peripheral Nerv >> P Words
Peripheral Nerv, definition of term: Peripheral Nerv
peripheral+nerv_pag1.html

Peripheral Devi >> P Words
Peripheral Devi, definition of term: Peripheral Devi
peripheral+devi_pag1.html