surround

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle.
2. v. To enclose or confine on all sides so as to bar escape or outside communication.
3. n. Something, such as fencing or a border, that surrounds: a fireplace surround.
4. n. The area around a thing or place: inflammation extending to the surround of the eye.
5. n. Surroundings; environment: "It was the country, the flat agricultural surround, that so ravished me” ( Listener).
6. n. A method of hunting wild animals by surrounding them and driving them to a place from which they cannot escape.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To overflow; inundate.
2. To encompass; environ; inclose on all sides, as a body of troops, surrounded by hostile forces, so as to cut off communication or retreat; invest, as a fortified place: as, to surround a city; to surround a detachment of the enemy.
3. To form an inclosure round; environ; encircle: as, a wall or ditch surrounds the city.
4. To make the circuit of; circumnavigate.
5. Synonyms To fence in, coop up.
6. To overflow.
7. n. A method of hunting some animals, such as buffaloes, by surrounding them and driving them over a precipice, or into a deep ravine or other place from which they cannot escape.
8. n. A cordon of hunters formed for the purpose of capturing animals by surrounding and driving them.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive To encircle or simultaneously extend on all sides of something.
2. v. transitive To enclose or confine something on all sides so as to prevent escape.
3. n. UK Anything, such as a fence or border that surrounds something.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To inclose on all sides; to encompass; to environ.
2. v. To lie or be on all sides of; to encircle.
3. v. obsolete To pass around; to travel about; to circumnavigate.
4. v. (Mil.) To inclose, as a body of troops, between hostile forces, so as to cut off means of communication or retreat; to invest, as a city.
5. n. U.S. A method of hunting some animals, as the buffalo, by surrounding a herd, and driving them over a precipice, into a ravine, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the area in which something exists or lives
2. v. surround with a wall in order to fortify
3. v. extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle.
4. v. surround so as to force to give up
5. v. envelop completely