circumscribe

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Perhaps anyone could guess as much, but what a layman might never know without Stanford’s book is that our busy roads severely circumscribe the territory cougars can roam, leading to isolation and inbreeding.

From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2024

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

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

And, in futuristic novels, oppressive regimes such as Margaret Atwood’s Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale severely circumscribe touch.

From The Guardian • May 22, 2020

To circumscribe poetry by a definition will only shew the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made.”

From Hazlitt on English Literature An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by Zeitlin, Jacob