Word.ws English Dictionary

circumscribe

UK/ˈsɜː.kəm.skɹaɪb//ˈsɝ.kəm.skɹaɪb/

circumscribe verb: to draw a line around; to encircle.

circumscribe: to draw a line around; to encircle
Image: Braindrain0000, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

circumscribe (third-person singular simple present circumscribes, present participle circumscribing, simple past and past participle circumscribed)

  1. To draw a line around; to encircle.
  2. To limit narrowly; to restrict.
    • "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."1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Asking for an Invitation”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 29
    • 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; […].2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36
  3. To draw the smallest circle or higher-dimensional sphere that has (a polyhedron, polygon, etc.) in its interior.

circumscribe meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

circumscribe in Tamil

க்ட்டுப்படுத்து, சுற்றிவளை, சுற்று வட்டமிடு, சுற்றிவரை, வெளிப் பொருத்து, சுற்றுருவமாகவரைதல்

circumscribe in Malayalam

ചുറ്റും വരയ്ക്കുക, അതിരിടുക, ഒതുക്കിനിറുത്തുക

circumscribe in Kannada

ಒಳಗೊಳ್ಳು, ಸುತ್ತುವರಿ, ಬಳಸು, ಬಳಸಿಯೆಳೆ, ಹದ್ದಿನಲ್ಲಿಡು, ಹತೋಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿಡು

Examples of circumscribe in a sentence

  • In a Venn diagram, an atom is depicted as an area circumscribed by lines but not cut by any line.
  • The wheres, whens and why-fores of how they are actually used is quite circumscribed.
  • By forcing their suitors to be earnest or sincere, the women psychodramatically circumscribe them.

All 13 example sentences with circumscribe

Forms of circumscribe

third-person singular presentcircumscribes
present participlecircumscribing
past participlecircumscribed
pastcircumscribed

Origin of circumscribe

From Latin circumscrībō, from circum (“around”) + scrībō (“write”). By surface analysis, circum- + scribe.

Words formed from circumscribe

Words that rhyme with circumscribe

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about circumscribe

What does circumscribe mean?
Circumscribe means to draw a line around; to encircle.
What is circumscribe in Tamil?
Circumscribe in Tamil is க்ட்டுப்படுத்து, சுற்றிவளை, சுற்று வட்டமிடு. See Circumscribe meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is circumscribe?
Circumscribe is a verb.
How do you pronounce circumscribe?
Circumscribe is pronounced /ˈsɜː.kəm.skɹaɪb/ (UK).
What is the past tense of circumscribe?
The past tense of circumscribe is circumscribed.

Words near circumscribe in the dictionary

  1. circumsails
  2. circumsaturnian
  3. circumscissile
  4. circumscribability
  5. circumscribable
  6. circumscribe
  7. circumscribed
  8. circumscribed circle
  9. circumscribed circles
  10. circumscriber
  11. circumscribers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: circumscribe (page history and authors); circumscribe (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); circumscribe (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); circumscribe (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-circumscribe.ogg, en-au-circumscribe.ogg.

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