Definition: peripheral

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Source: WordNet (r) 1.7 

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]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

Peripheral \Pe*riph"er*al\, a.
   1. Of or pertaining to a periphery; constituting a periphery;
      peripheric.

   2. (Anat.) External; away from the center; as, the peripheral
      portion of the nervous system.

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (2003-OCT-10) 

peripheral

   <hardware> (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)