Word.ws English Dictionary

surroundings

Syllables: sur·round·ings/səˈɹaʊndɪŋz/

surroundings is the plural of surrounding.

Noun

surroundings pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The area surrounding someone or something, together with the objects and circumstances in the vicinity; the environment or ambiance.
    • His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced by any change in his surroundings.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
    • We like the way they live, in their penthouselike surroundings filled with fake ferns and goldfish.1988 June, Spy, page 27
    Synonyms:
    surround
  2. (plural, plural-only) All parts of the universe that are not within the thermodynamic system of interest.

Meaning of surrounding

Noun

surrounding (plural surroundings)

  1. An outlying area; area in proximity to something.
  2. An environment.
    • It was inevitable that German music should leave its impress upon the song of the Jew, that the Jew's spirit should be imbued with the musical scale and style of his surrounding.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 133

Synonyms of surroundings

Questions about surroundings

What does surroundings mean?
Surroundings means the area surrounding someone or something, together with the objects and circumstances in the vicinity; the environment or ambiance.
What is surroundings the plural of?
Surroundings is the plural of surrounding.
What part of speech is surroundings?
Surroundings is a noun.
How do you pronounce surroundings?
Surroundings is pronounced /səˈɹaʊndɪŋz/.

Words near surroundings in the dictionary

  1. surrounder
  2. surrounders
  3. surroundest
  4. surroundeth
  5. surrounding
  6. surroundings
  7. surrounds
  8. surroyal
  9. surroyals
  10. surry
  11. Surry County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: surroundings (page history and authors); surrounding (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-surrounding.ogg.

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