encircle - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Proto-Indo-European *h₁én

Proto-Italic *en

Proto-Italic *en-

Middle English en-

Proto-Indo-European *-lós

Proto-Indo-European *-elós

English encircle

From en- + circle.

encircle (third-person singular simple present encircles, present participle encircling, simple past and past participle encircled)

  1. (transitive) To surround, form a circle around.
    • 1983 February 5, Andrea Loewenstein, “Snowbound”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 28, page 10:
      "Friday!" she called out, bursting open the doors and quickly encircling her friend in the warmth of her arms.
    • 1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 70:
      […] two Russian armies would advance into East Prussia, one westward from the Niemen, the other northward from the Narew, with the object of encircling and immobilizing all enemy forces there.
    • 2000 June 17, Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Mary of Nazareth: Friend of God and Prophet”, in America‎[1], volume 182, number 21:
      Down through the centuries, as the Holy Spirit graces person after person in land after land, they form together a grand company of "friends of God and prophets" (Wis. 7:27); a community of holy people endeavoring to live their lives praising God, loving each other and struggling for justice and peace. This is a company that not only encircles the globe in space but stretches backward and forward in time.
  2. (transitive) To move or go around completely.
    • 1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 385:
      It is also customary in the Orient and among Sephardim for the mourners to encircle the coffin of an erudite person seven times and recite Yoshayv besayter while making each circuit.