Word.ws English Dictionary

talk in circles

talk in circles verb: to argue a point by repetition of the same theme, sometimes by using different words, but without making any progress.

Verb

talk in circles (third-person singular simple present talks in circles, present participle talking in circles, simple past and past participle talked in circles)

  1. (idiomatic) To argue a point by repetition of the same theme, sometimes by using different words, but without making any progress.

Synonyms of talk in circles

Forms of talk in circles

third-person singular presenttalks in circles
present participletalking in circles
past participletalked in circles
pasttalked in circles

Questions about talk in circles

What does talk in circles mean?
Talk in circles means to argue a point by repetition of the same theme, sometimes by using different words, but without making any progress.
What part of speech is talk in circles?
Talk in circles is a verb.
What is the past tense of talk in circles?
The past tense of talk in circles is talked in circles.

Words near talk in circles in the dictionary

  1. talk dirty
  2. talk down
  3. talk down to
  4. talk everything
  5. talk fast and loose
  6. talk in circles
  7. talk into
  8. talk is cheap
  9. talk jock
  10. talk jockey
  11. talk jockeys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: talk in circles (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-talk in circles.ogg.

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