Word.ws English Dictionary

ride the circuit

ride the circuit verb: to travel between small towns on horseback, usually to preach or preside over courts of law.

Verb

ride the circuit (third-person singular simple present rides the circuit, present participle riding the circuit, simple past rode the circuit, past participle ridden the circuit)

  1. To travel between small towns on horseback, usually to preach or preside over courts of law.
    • "Although commissioned, Hale J did not ride the circuit, his place being taken by Francis Swanton, the clerk of assize."1972, J. S. Cockburn, A History of English Assizes, 1558-1714, page 284
    • "Likewise, other local lawyers would ride the circuit for a session or two, briefly joining the core group as it traveled the circuit, and return home."1999, Timothy R. Mahoney, Provincial Lives: Middle-Class Experience in the Antebellum Middle West, page 184
  2. (slang) To move someone who has been arrested from police station to police station, thereby hindering release.
    • “But we don't have to. We can ride the circuit with you. It might take days."1949, Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister, page 197

Examples of ride the circuit in a sentence

  • Usually Methodists dealt with this problem by having their ministers "ride the circuit" by periodically visiting homes and class meetings.2001, Catherine L. Albanese, American Spiritualities: A Reader, page 191:
  • He took a liking to Stanley and told him that they would give him work in the ministry, if he would ride the circuit.2011, Keith Earnest Andersen, The Last of the Pioneers, page 92:

Forms of ride the circuit

third-person singular presentrides the circuit
present participleriding the circuit
pastrode the circuit
past participleridden the circuit

Questions about ride the circuit

What does ride the circuit mean?
Ride the circuit means to travel between small towns on horseback, usually to preach or preside over courts of law.
How do you use ride the circuit in a sentence?
Usually Methodists dealt with this problem by having their ministers "ride the circuit" by periodically visiting homes and class meetings.
What part of speech is ride the circuit?
Ride the circuit is a verb.
What is the past tense of ride the circuit?
The past tense of ride the circuit is rode the circuit.

Words near ride the circuit in the dictionary

  1. ride St. George
  2. ride tall in the saddle
  3. ride the bench
  4. ride the boards
  5. ride the brakes
  6. ride the circuit
  7. ride the clock
  8. ride the clutch
  9. ride the coattails
  10. ride the cock carousel
  11. ride the cotton bicycle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ride the circuit (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ride the circuit.ogg.

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