Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A closed, usually circular line that goes around an object or area. synonym: circumference.
  • noun The region enclosed by such a line.
  • noun A path or route the complete traversal of which without local change of direction requires returning to the starting point.
  • noun The act of following such a path or route.
  • noun A journey made on such a path or route.
  • noun A closed path followed or capable of being followed by an electric current.
  • noun A configuration of electrically or electromagnetically connected components or devices.
  • noun A regular or accustomed course from place to place; a round.
  • noun The area covered by such a course, especially by the judge or judges of a court.
  • noun An association of theaters in which plays, acts, or films move from theater to theater for presentation.
  • noun A group of nightclubs, show halls, or resorts at which entertainers appear in turn.
  • noun A series of competitions held in different places.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To make a circuit or circuit of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To revolve about or go around in.
  • To move in a circle or circuit; go around.
  • noun The act of moving or passing around; a circular movement, progress, or journey; a revolution.
  • noun A boundary-line encompassing any object; the distance round any space, whether circular or of other form; circumference; limit; compass.
  • noun That which encircles; a ring or circlet.
  • noun The space inclosed in a circle or within certain limits.
  • noun The journey of a judge or other person from one place to another for the purpose of holding court or performing other stated duties.
  • noun The district or territory in which any business involving periodical journeys from place to place is carried on; the places visited.
  • noun Specifically The district or portion of country in which the same judge or judges hold courts for the trial of questions of fact.
  • noun Hence A circuit court (see below).
  • noun In the Meth. Ch., the district assigned to an itinerant preacher.
  • noun A number of theaters controlled by one manager.
  • noun The name given by foreigners in China to a subdivision of a province, containing two or more fû or prefectures, under the control of an official styled a Tao-tai.
  • noun The arrangement by which a current of electricity is kept up between the two poles of an electrical machine or of a voltaic battery; the path of an electric current.
  • noun A roundabout argument or statement; circumlocution.
  • noun In logic, the extension of a term. See extension.
  • noun In mathematics, a closed path on a surface.
  • noun In the Meth. Ch., to go the rounds of a circuit as an itinerant preacher.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To travel around.
  • noun The act of moving or revolving around, or as in a circle or orbit; a revolution.
  • noun The circumference of, or distance round, any space; the measure of a line round an area.
  • noun That which encircles anything, as a ring or crown.
  • noun The space inclosed within a circle, or within limits.
  • noun A regular or appointed journeying from place to place in the exercise of one's calling, as of a judge, or a preacher.
  • noun (Law) A certain division of a state or country, established by law for a judge or judges to visit, for the administration of justice.
  • noun (Methodist Church) A district in which an itinerant preacher labors.
  • noun obsolete Circumlocution.
  • noun (Law) a court which sits successively in different places in its circuit (see Circuit, 6). In the United States, the federal circuit courts are commonly presided over by a judge of the supreme court, or a special circuit judge, together with the judge of the district court. They have jurisdiction within statutory limits, both in law and equity, in matters of federal cognizance. Some of the individual States also have circuit courts, which have general statutory jurisdiction of the same class, in matters of State cognizance.
  • noun (Law) a longer course of proceedings than is necessary to attain the object in view.
  • noun to go around; to go a roundabout way.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, circumference, from Old French, from Latin circuitus, a going around, from past participle of circumīre, to go around : circum-, circum- + īre, to go; see ei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English circuit, from Old French circuit, from Latin circuitus ("a going round"), from circuire ("go round"), from circum ("around") + ire

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Examples

Comments

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  • a going around

    June 19, 2007

  • *rolls eyes*

    October 14, 2008