circumscribe
Americanverb (used with object)
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to draw a line around; encircle.
to circumscribe a city on a map.
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to enclose within bounds; limit or confine, especially narrowly.
Her social activities are circumscribed by school regulations.
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to mark off; define; delimit.
to circumscribe the area of a science.
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Geometry.
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to draw (a figure) around another figure so as to touch as many points as possible.
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(of a figure) to enclose (another figure) in this manner.
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verb
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to restrict within limits
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to mark or set the bounds of
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to draw a geometric construction around (another construction) so that the two are in contact but do not intersect Compare inscribe
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to draw a line round
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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circumscribernoun
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circumscribableadjective
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noncircumscribedadjective
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uncircumscribableadjective
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uncircumscribedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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circumscribesimple
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circumscribessimple
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have circumscribedperfect
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has circumscribedperfect
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am circumscribingprogressive
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are circumscribingprogressive
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is circumscribingprogressive
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have been circumscribingperfect progressive
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has been circumscribingperfect progressive
Past
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circumscribedsimple
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had circumscribedperfect
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was circumscribingprogressive
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were circumscribingprogressive
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had been circumscribingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of circumscribe
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin circumscrībere, equivalent to circum- circum- + scrībere to write
Explanation
To circumscribe is to limit or restrict. If you spend too much time watching TV instead of fulfilling other obligations, you might circumscribe your TV-watching time to one hour daily (or two hours, if your favorite show is on). Circumscribe comes from the Latin words circum, meaning "around," and scribere, meaning "to write." If the word circumscribe causes you to think of geometry class, give yourself a pat on the back. In geometry, circumscribe means to draw one geometric figure around another figure so that the two figures touch but don’t intersect. If you studied geometry but this sounds unfamiliar, perhaps you should have taken our advice about watching too much TV.
Vocabulary lists containing circumscribe
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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The Write Stuff: Scrib, Script
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Around and Around: Circum
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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.
See Examples For:
Perhaps anyone could guess as much, but what a layman might never know without Stanford’s book is that our busy roads severely circumscribe the territory cougars can roam, leading to isolation and inbreeding.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2024
The charter provision does not appear to circumscribe that investigative authority for the department’s highest-ranking officer, the police chief.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023
Howlers typically start at dusk and end hours later, following desolate fire roads that circumscribe an area known to contain wolves.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 28, 2021
And, in futuristic novels, oppressive regimes such as Margaret Atwood’s Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale severely circumscribe touch.
From The Guardian ● May 22, 2020
The luck of Robinson Crusoe was not more fortunate than ours, although he had not the cut of frost nor the long night, nor the torment of bears to circumscribe his adventures.
From My Attainment of the Pole by Cook, Frederick A.
It’s one thing to confer maximalist, seemingly boundless authority on the executive branch and on the president that, by definition, circumscribes the judicial role.
From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2025
But Wednesday’s ruling seriously circumscribes the instances where that can actually happen, justices said.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2022
Eight years after Diane Vidalakis’ delivery at Huntington, the injury she says she sustained under Sutton’s care circumscribes her life.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2018
In addition to coming on softly, Lendl circumscribes his exposure to Murray.
From New York Times ● Jun. 20, 2012
We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.
From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green
“From the start, Humphrey’s was tethered to a highly circumscribed and almost fictional view of the FTC’s role,” Chief Justice John Roberts writes for the majority.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
As per the country's own observations, the fund had limited ability to do something about the loan, and was "circumscribed by procedural and technical formalities".
From BBC ● May 14, 2025
So circumscribed is our behavior that airline employees sometimes refer to passengers as “self-loading cargo.”
From Slate ● Mar. 14, 2025
In a place long circumscribed by disaster, Bass is facing a catastrophe with financial and logistical burdens that will likely dwarf the combined fallout from the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 1992 civil unrest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 13, 2025
It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
That precedent set a “great level of deference” as the standard of review for deployments that have since mushroomed across the country, circumscribing debate even in courts where it is not legally binding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025
When, however, I search for “War on Terror, civilians killed” without even circumscribing the time range, I get about 850,000 results.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2024
"But that does not mean that Greece is to blame, it is just circumscribing specific areas of responsibility," he added.
From Reuters ● Jun. 15, 2023
The Constitution structures our fundamental political institutions to provide the energy and flexibility to secure rights while circumscribing the exercise of political power to prevent government from violating rights.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 16, 2020
“With every passing day, Watergate was circumscribing our freedom of action,” Kissinger, the one person unscathed by scandal, later said.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
