Word.ws English Dictionary

close in on

close in on verb: to enclose around; to tighten or shrink; to collapse.

Verb

close in on (third-person singular simple present closes in on, present participle closing in on, simple past and past participle closed in on)

  1. (idiomatic) To enclose around; to tighten or shrink; to collapse.
    • Sometimes it feels like the walls are closing in on me.
  2. (idiomatic) To catch up with in a chase; to near the end of a pursuit.
    • The police closed in on the suspect.
  3. (idiomatic) To near a goal or completion.
    • I think we are closing in on the end of this project.

Forms of close in on

third-person singular presentcloses in on
present participleclosing in on
past participleclosed in on
pastclosed in on

Questions about close in on

What does close in on mean?
Close in on means to enclose around; to tighten or shrink; to collapse.
What part of speech is close in on?
Close in on is a verb.
What is the past tense of close in on?
The past tense of close in on is closed in on.

Words near close in on in the dictionary

  1. close helm
  2. close helmet
  3. close helmets
  4. close helms
  5. close in
  6. close in on
  7. close in upon
  8. close of business
  9. close of play
  10. close off
  11. close on the heels of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: close in on (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-au-close in on.ogg.

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