Word.ws English Dictionary

circle back

circle back verb: to return to a previous location or state; to come back to.

Verb

circle back (third-person singular simple present circles back, present participle circling back, simple past and past participle circled back)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To return to a previous location or state; to come back to.
    • I have to circle back to the office to pick up a few things.
    • Well, a Palm Springs property known as Elvis Presley's honeymoon retreat has circled back on the market at $3.2 million – the same price as early this year.2019 December 2, Lauren Beale, “Elvis Presley's Palm Springs honeymoon home circles back on the market”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 28 Feb 2020
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive, corporate jargon) To return to a previous topic of discussion; to bring up again.
    • We're out of time right now, but we can circle back on this tomorrow.
    • It seems the phone numbers may be inoperative and some people may be in hiding, so I think we're going to be circling back with the government to check those numbers.2018 August 17, Catherine E. Shoichet, quoting Lee Gelernt, “The US deported hundreds of parents without their kids. Should those parents be brought back?”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06...
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see circle, back.
    • When it was released from its cage Monday, the bird gracefully circled back, almost in a half moon, before disappearing into the sky.2019 September 19, “Into the blue yonder: Bald eagle soars away after rehab stay”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 09 May 2017

Examples of circle back in a sentence

  • My goal is to hit "Amazing" by 7 a.m., which allows me to circle back to the puzzle all day, pick, pick, picking until I hit "Genius."2020 February 19, Laura Lippman, “The NYT Spelling Bee Gives Me L-I-F-E”, in Slate, archived from the original on 27 Oct 2022:
  • I'm not proud of this, but I circle back to my work after dinner to get done what I need to do.2022 August 31, Sarah Harrison Smith, quoting Sara Horowitz, “Striking a Work-Life Balance”, in The New York Times, archived from the...
  • I will circle back to the meteorology of this event in a moment.2018 December 17, Marshall Shepherd, “The Meteorology Of Life-Threatening Waves Along The U.S. West Coast”, in Forbes, archived from the...
  • Say the magic words: you need to take a beat, and then you'll circle back.”2020, Samantha Jayne, “Surviving the Office” (1:20 from the start), in Quarter Life Poetry, season 1, episode 3, spoken by Samantha Jayne...

Forms of circle back

third-person singular presentcircles back
present participlecircling back
past participlecircled back
pastcircled back

Origin of circle back

Alluding to physically making a circle to order to return to one's starting point (as in sense 3).

Questions about circle back

What does circle back mean?
Circle back means to return to a previous location or state; to come back to.
How do you use circle back in a sentence?
My goal is to hit "Amazing" by 7 a.m., which allows me to circle back to the puzzle all day, pick, pick, picking until I hit "Genius."
What part of speech is circle back?
Circle back is a verb.
What is the past tense of circle back?
The past tense of circle back is circled back.

Words near circle back in the dictionary

  1. circingles
  2. circinnate
  3. circinteractome
  4. Circinus
  5. circle
  6. circle back
  7. circle changeup
  8. circle changeups
  9. Circle City
  10. circle contact lens
  11. circle contact lenses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: circle back (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “circle back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/circle_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.