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.
Despite its sedate rural surroundings, operations at the Category B jail have been far from serene, with people describing a picture of chaos following the first private-to-private transfer of a prison in England and Wales.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
Here the surroundings are less bleak, the library better, the prisoners friendlier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Through quirks of form and function, all other radio-ready music is incredibly focused on its immediate surroundings.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
They can be produced when cosmic-ray particles interact with their surroundings, and their energies are typically about one-tenth of the energy carried by the cosmic rays that created them.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 2, 2026
With ice-caked mittens he felt out his surroundings.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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.
