Word.ws English Dictionary

circling back

circling back is the present participle and gerund of circle back.

Meaning of circle back

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.
  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.
  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

Questions about circling back

What is circling back the present participle and gerund of?
Circling back is the present participle and gerund of circle back.

Words near circling back in the dictionary

  1. circlewise
  2. circley
  3. circline
  4. circlines
  5. circling
  6. circling back
  7. circling the drain
  8. circling the field
  9. circling the wagons
  10. circling up
  11. circlingly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: circling back (page history and authors); 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: “circling back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/circling_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.