[W/K] :: peripheral

  Peripheral \Pe*riph"er*al\, 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

  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]

  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
  
  

  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)