ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Circumscribe

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /ˈsɜː.kəm.skɹaɪb/ · Part of speech verb

Quick meaning: Circumscribe is a verb meaning To draw a line around; to encircle.

Meaning

To draw a line around; to encircle.

More Meanings

  1. To limit narrowly; to restrict.
  2. (geometry) To draw the smallest circle or higher-dimensional sphere that has (a polyhedron, polygon, etc.) in its interior.

Example Sentences

"Well, I promise you to circumscribe her conquests as much as possible by extending my own," returned Henrietta. "It will be an easy task; for Miss Churchill does not do 'the honours of her eyes.' I often tell her her beauty is quite wasted upon her."
It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].

Word Forms

Synonyms for circumscribe

Depending on context, synonyms include limit, confine.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include confine, limit, contain, restrict, curtail, restrain.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.