The Collaborative International Dictionary
Circumscribe \Cir`cum*scribe"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Circumscribed; p. pr. & vb. n. Circumscribing.] [L. circumscribere, -scriptum; circum + scribere to write, draw. See Soribe.]
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to write or engrave around. [R.]
Thereon is circumscribed this epitaph.
--Ashmole. -
To inclose within a certain limit; to hem in; to surround; to bound; to confine; to restrain.
To circumscribe royal power.
--Bancroft. -
(Geom.) To draw a line around so as to touch at certain points without cutting. See Inscribe, 5.
Syn: To bound; limit; restrict; confine; abridge; restrain; environ; encircle; inclose; encompass.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of circumscribe English)
Usage examples of "circumscribing".
The secondhand moved forward again, and again, the sweep-second duly circumscribing its segments of time.
Mitford leaned forward, circumscribing the area they had searched with his index finger.
There is always an inertia to be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct—not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.
Perhaps they provided some useful means of circumscribing action and thought, blocking off the parts of the world that seemed to be governed by irrational beliefs and random chance and the dead weight of the past.
She felt as if invisible barriers surrounded her, circumscribing her movements—forcing her to scale everything down, to take smaller steps and move more slowly and always, always return to the center point she had established when she began.
As Bass Foster led his staff and galloglaiches down the long, cursive roadway toward the gate that pierced the wall circumscribing the old outer bailey of Whyffler Hall, the taste of the good brown ale that had filled the stirrup cup still on his lips and the adrenaline rising at the thought of the cross-country hell-ride that would put them all back in York considerably faster than they had proceeded from that city's environs, his musings lay with all that had gone before, as well as all that loomed on the near horizon.