Meaning – The term peripheral device, refers to any device that can communicate with a particular computer; for example, input/output units, auxiliary storage.
Since it’s not a core device for the system, the computer can still function without the peripheral, which simply provides extra functions. However, some peripherals such as a mouse, keyboard, or monitor tend to be pretty much fundamental to the interaction between the user and the computer itself.
A peripheral device is also called a peripheral, computer peripheral, input-output device, or I/O device.
There are several types of peripherals, although they’re commonly divided into three broad categories: input, output, and storage devices.
Example of usage – “A peripheral device provides input/output (I/O) functions for a computer and serves as an auxiliary computing device without computing-intensive functionality. Peripheral devices connect with a computer through several I/O interfaces, such as communications (COM), Universal Serial Bus (USB) and serial ports such as serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) ones.”
