semicircle
Americannoun
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semicircles
plural
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Also called semicircumference. half of a circle; the arc from one end of a diameter to the other.
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anything having or arranged in the form of a half of a circle.
noun
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one half of a circle
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half the circumference of a circle
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anything having the shape or form of half a circle
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of semicircle
From the Latin word sēmicirculus, dating back to 1520–30. See semi-, circle
Vocabulary lists containing semicircle
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:
For instance, traveling from the North Pole to the South Pole along Earth's surface follows a semicircle, which represents the shortest possible route on a sphere.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 9, 2026
When you put it on you see before you four empty wooden chairs ranged in a semicircle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
Doors opened and shut, and people began to emerge, gathering into a semicircle.
From Slate ● Oct. 27, 2025
Rivas hit “record” on her phone as a semicircle of trucks and vans came into view.
From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2025
Before long they’d have reassembled themselves in a semicircle at the fringe of the yard, chewing on their pink sugarcane stalks and staring.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
“Feeling valued” and “adding value” form semicircles around the target, and an outer circle replicates the four domains for each of the “value” categories in the adjacent inner ring.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 6, 2022
The device is a decidedly un-cuddly thing: two squat semicircles joined to one other.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 16, 2022
He draws his characters in a way that initially suggests minimal emotion: their eyes are dots, their mouths small semicircles.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 14, 2019
Figure 5.30 The polar region R lies between two semicircles.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
Stick the straight edge of the semicircles to the tape, leaving the circular edge hanging off at the tail end.
From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry
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.
