circumscribe

First, the state needs to provide clear guidance to carefully circumscribe the situations in which conservatorships are, and are not, appropriate.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2023

The charter provision does not appear to circumscribe that investigative authority for the department’s highest-ranking officer, the police chief.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023

Those who ban books seem to want to circumscribe empathy, reserving it for a limited circle closer to the kind of people they perceive themselves to be.

From New York Times ● Jan. 29, 2022

Howlers typically start at dusk and end hours later, following desolate fire roads that circumscribe an area known to contain wolves.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 28, 2021

Their opponents accepted the issue, and resolved to circumscribe the duke's inordinate powers.

From History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume 2 by Henry Martyn Baird

It’s one thing to confer maximalist, seemingly boundless authority on the executive branch and on the president that, by definition, circumscribes the judicial role.

From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2025

But Wednesday’s ruling seriously circumscribes the instances where that can actually happen, justices said.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2022

Using high-profile cases, interdisciplinary research and her own experience, Henning provides a complete account of how the criminal legal system circumscribes every part of Black children’s lives.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 10, 2021

Eight years after Diane Vidalakis’ delivery at Huntington, the injury she says she sustained under Sutton’s care circumscribes her life.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2018

We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.

From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

Yet the pardon power is circumscribed: It applies only to criminal “offenses,” excluding impeachments.

From Slate ● May 26, 2026

In human terms, it is an emotional and costly undertaking, circumscribed by science, chance and luck.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025

Yet this project’s geography is circumscribed, its borders hedged.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025

As per the country's own observations, the fund had limited ability to do something about the loan, and was "circumscribed by procedural and technical formalities".

From BBC ● May 14, 2025

Her Maryland was a small, circumscribed world of Curt’s American friends.

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

That precedent set a “great level of deference” as the standard of review for deployments that have since mushroomed across the country, circumscribing debate even in courts where it is not legally binding.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025

When, however, I search for “War on Terror, civilians killed” without even circumscribing the time range, I get about 850,000 results.

From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2024

"But that does not mean that Greece is to blame, it is just circumscribing specific areas of responsibility," he added.

From Reuters ● Jun. 15, 2023

Her own use of traditional forms and allusions – Ashbery, Whitman and Sexton appear, as do Borges, Homer and Lorca – are means of expanding rather than circumscribing her practice.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 2, 2020

“With every passing day, Watergate was circumscribing our freedom of action,” Kissinger, the one person unscathed by scandal, later said.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin