circumvent
Americanverb (used with object)
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circumvents,
present (3rd person singular)
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circumvented,
past participle, past
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circumventing
present participle
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to go around or bypass.
to circumvent the lake;
to circumvent the real issues.
-
to avoid (defeat, failure, unpleasantness, etc.) by artfulness or deception; avoid by anticipating or outwitting.
He circumvented capture by anticipating their movements.
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to surround or encompass, as by stratagem; entrap.
to circumvent a body of enemy troops.
verb
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to evade or go around
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to outwit
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to encircle (an enemy) so as to intercept or capture
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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circumventernoun
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circumventionnoun
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circumventornoun
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circumventiveadjective
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uncircumventedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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circumventsimple
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circumventssimple
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have circumventedperfect
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has circumventedperfect
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am circumventingprogressive
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are circumventingprogressive
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is circumventingprogressive
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have been circumventingperfect progressive
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has been circumventingperfect progressive
Past
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circumventedsimple
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had circumventedperfect
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was circumventingprogressive
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were circumventingprogressive
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had been circumventingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of circumvent
First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin circumventus (past participle of circumvenīre “to come around, surround, oppress, defraud”), equivalent to circum- circum- + ven(īre) “to come” + -tus past participle suffix
Explanation
To circumvent is to avoid. Someone who trains elephants but somehow gets out of picking up after them has found a way to circumvent the cleaning of the circus tent. Circum in Latin means "around" or "round about," and vent- comes from venire, "to come," but painting a picture from these two parts of the word helps. Picture someone circling around a barrier instead of climbing over it. That's what you do when you circumvent. You find a smart way around rules or barriers, or avoid doing something unpleasant altogether.
Vocabulary lists containing circumvent
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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:
Meanwhile, some safeguards were easy to turn off or circumvent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
City were accused of a wide range of rule breaches, centred around claims that they inflated sponsorship revenue from connected companies and made other "off the books" payments to circumvent football's financial rules.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
DUBAI—Saudi Arabia spent months rerouting oil across the desert to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
Afghani activist Roya Mahboob stressed that women who live under oppressive regimes like the Taliban can secure financial independence only with tools, like Bitcoin, that circumvent the law.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
My father did, in any case, rapidly discover a way to circumvent the limitations on his effectiveness implied by the stricture that he should carry no laden trays.
From "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
Light Helmets circumvents locker-room gatekeepers and makes endorsement deals in a bid for visibility.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
But Carvajal-Muñoz’s attorneys are testing a legal theory that circumvents these roadblocks by suing officers under state law for violations of his constitutional rights.
From Slate ● Apr. 15, 2026
“From Internet memes to late-night comedians, from cartoons to the plays and poems as old as organized government itself — Political Satire circumvents traditional gatekeepers & helps hold those in power accountable,” he continued.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2025
Tebas said that the complaint centres on his belief that "City have a structure that circumvents the rules" including a group of companies in the United Arab Emirates outside the City Football Group.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2025
Perhaps tomorrow someone will invent a theory consistent with everything else we know that circumvents paradoxes on such matters as simultaneity, avoids privileged reference frames and still permits travel faster than light.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
In other words, Manchester City's owners circumvented the league's financial regulations over a number of years by pumping money into the club that should not have been recorded as sponsorship income.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
For example, the agents circumvented a filter on the website that was blocking their requests for data, she said, ultimately using a technique that the website operators didn’t permit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
In July, Open AI models circumvented human controls placed on them and hacked into Hugging Face, a repository for open-source AI models.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
If Dodgers’ ownership is found to have circumvented the rules, there should be serious consequences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
The sentences tumbled out of my mouth, but the story circumvented my brain.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
Since the start of the year, nine shadow fleet tankers suspected of circumventing sanctions have been seized around the EU.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
But circumventing the professionals can trigger a money-sucking spiral, says Richard Fasulo, a technician based in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., who is known on social media as Check Engine Chuck.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
Mac: Security researchers say they have discovered a new way of circumventing Apple’s state-of-the art security technology, using techniques they discovered while testing an early version of Anthropic’s Mythos AI software in April.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
The arrangement could be considered circumventing the NBA salary cap, a serious violation of league rules.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
He was the kind of man who worked hard, enjoyed circumventing risks, and avoided the limelight.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
