circumscribe
Americanverb (used with object)
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circumscribes,
present (3rd person singular)
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circumscribed,
past participle, past
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circumscribing
present participle
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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
The depression may circumscribe his behavior, but don’t let it dictate yours.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 21, 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 Frederick A. Cook
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
My son doesn’t like seafood, so that circumscribes that.
From New York Times ● Aug. 14, 2015
We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.
From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green
The authors of the study estimated that their circumscribed findings extrapolated countywide could represent up to $114 million in losses over a month of sustained enforcement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Yet the pardon power is circumscribed: It applies only to criminal “offenses,” excluding impeachments.
From Slate ● May 26, 2026
In between are Egyptian vultures, which use rocks to crack open ostrich eggs—genuine tool use—but when presented with rocks and chicken eggs simply cannot figure out what to do, suggesting a rather circumscribed “intelligence.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 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
To allow my activities to be circumscribed by my opponent was a form of defeat, and I resolved not to become my own jailer.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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.
