surroundings
Britishplural noun
Explanation
Your surroundings are the things all around you. When you park your car in a huge lot, paying attention to your surroundings can help you find the car again later. You can use the noun surroundings to mean the nearby environment — all of the objects close by, as well as the location itself — and also the circumstances or conditions where you are. When someone builds a house, the surroundings will help determine which direction it will face and how many windows it will have. Surroundings stems from surround, "be all around," but originally "flood or overflow."
Vocabulary lists containing surroundings
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
On Fishbone's acclaimed new album, The Reality of Our Surroundings, the band incorporates church bells and human screams.
From Time Magazine Archive
Surroundings change rapidly in the rush of a new community, and 1870 saw Cheyenne established, strengthened, purified, settled.
From Ocean to Ocean on Horseback Being the Story of a Tour in the Saddle from the Atlantic to the Pacific; with Especial Reference to the Early History and Devel by Glazier, Willard W.
Surroundings had undoubtedly far greater influence on some of them than was reasonable.
From The Coxswain's Bride also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)
For five minutes, lost to my Surroundings, I turned the pages; and then became conscious that across the table some one was watching me.
From The Log of the Jolly Polly by Davis, Richard Harding
Surroundings that contribute a quality of awfulness embrace in such scenes the soul of the traveller, and hold him in their tremendous thrall.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
