circumambient
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- circumambience noun
- circumambiency noun
- circumambiently adverb
Etymology
Origin of circumambient
First recorded in 1625–35; from Late Latin circumambient- (stem of circumambiēns ); see circum-, ambient
Explanation
If something is circumambient, it's all around something or someone. You might escape the circumambient conversation at a party to go out to the quiet garden filled with the circumambient fragrance of flowers. The word circumambient is made up of the Latin roots circum-, meaning "around," and ambient, meaning "going about." It describes something that goes or extends all around a central point. Circumambient is often used to describe things like atmospheric conditions or abstract forces that completely surround a person or object. Think of the continuous, circumambient sounds of a busy city, the circumambient gloom of a dense fog, or the circumambient tension in a room filled with hostile people who don't like each other.
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.
With it, we reduce the huge circumambient room for error to a manageable somatic circumference.
From Golf Digest • May 7, 2020
There is a lot of circumambient madness that the captions help pin down.
From New York Times • Sep. 6, 2018
A similar jolt of energy would bolt from a light-weight atom at the instant it acquired energy by merging with another light atom or by accumulating raw energy from circumambient space.
From Time Magazine Archive
One acclaimer was Cambridge's Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac who, now only 31, three years ago startled his learned compatriots by declaring that nuclear protons were simply "holes" in the circumambient electronic field.
From Time Magazine Archive
The temperature was so reduced, by the circumambient waters, that on the 27th November, with drizzling showers, the thermometer was down to 48� in the forenoon.
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.
