1
as in limiting
to set bounds or an upper limit for
circumscribed his enthusiasm so as not to make the losing side feel worse
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in defining
to mark the limits of
Lake Michigan circumscribes the city of Chicago on the east
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Recent Examples of circumscribing
In quick succession, the Court began circumscribing Congress’s ability to define rights and act on its constitutional imagination.
—
Duncan Hosie, The Atlantic, 13 Jan. 2026
This wouldn’t be the first time the Court has avoided a head-on fight with the other branches, especially after Congress makes noise about circumscribing its authority.
—Time, 14 Nov. 2025
Duncan Hosie, The Atlantic, 13 Jan. 2026
This wouldn’t be the first time the Court has avoided a head-on fight with the other branches, especially after Congress makes noise about circumscribing its authority.
—Time, 14 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for circumscribing
Verb
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Many American farmers rely on fertilizer moving by barge up the Mississippi River ahead of the planting season, limiting their ability to defer purchases.—
Mohammed Sergie,
semafor.com,
14 May 2026
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The problem is that all the various strands — the parallel tales — dilute our access to the characters, limiting their dimensions.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
14 May 2026
Verb
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For customers and investors this might mean a lot more opportunities to build generation-defining companies without facing fundamental limits to scaling.—
Martin Casado,
Fortune,
20 May 2026
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Saudi Arabia’s beauty sector is undergoing a transformation that is both commercially significant and culturally defining.—
FMG Studios,
Footwear News,
20 May 2026
Verb
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The United States has already demonstrated this with export controls on advanced chips, restricting which nations can develop certain AI capabilities.—
David Liberman,
Fortune,
16 May 2026
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The feature, introduced in late 2025, prevents mobile networks from pinpointing exact street addresses, instead restricting location data to a broader neighborhood.—
David Phelan,
Forbes.com,
16 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Circumscribing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/circumscribing. Accessed 23 May. 2026.
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