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

The measures circumscribe the power of local officials to impose lockdowns and ensure they are lifted quickly.

From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2022

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

Vain attempts to circumscribe that invisible circle of human knowledge which is perpetually enlarging itself!

From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 by Isaac Disraeli

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

My problem is when I feel like other people’s perceptions and ideas of who I am and who they want me to be circumscribes my life and is limiting.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2021

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

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

From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

The authors of the study estimated that their circumscribed findings extrapolated countywide could represent up to $114 million in losses over a month of sustained enforcement.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

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

From Slate ● May 26, 2026

In between are Egyptian vultures, which use rocks to crack open ostrich eggs—genuine tool use—but when presented with rocks and chicken eggs simply cannot figure out what to do, suggesting a rather circumscribed “intelligence.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

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

His conjecture that the orbits of the planets are circumscribed by the five platonic solids were no more supported by Tycho’s data than by Copernicus’.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

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

Briefs supporting and opposing New York have excavated historical examples of laws protecting, and laws circumscribing, the right to carry guns in public.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2021

“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