v. [ad. L. circumscrībĕre to draw a line round, encompass, limit, confine, etc., f. circum around + scrībĕre to make lines, write. Cf. the earlier CIRCUMSCRIVE.]
1. trans. To draw a line round; to encompass with (or as with) a bounding line, to form the boundary of, to bound.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, I. 9. The bones of the temples … are equally circumscribed with scalie Agglutinations.
1613. R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3), Circumscribe, to compasse about with a line.
1753. Hogarth, Anal. Beauty, vii. 37. The straight line and the circular line … bound and circumscribe all visible objects.
1823. Rutter, Fonthill, 48. The rich and glorious landscape, circumscribed by no common horizon.
b. To encompass (without a line), to encircle.
1603. B. Jonson, Sejanus, V. x. They that … thronged to circumscribe him.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., I. 81. Old Simeon did comprehend and circumscribe in his armes him that filled all the world.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. IV., cclix. The Little World thus Circumscribes a Nation.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. xi. 185. I was alone, circumscribed by the … ocean.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 63. That collection of air … circumscribing the earth, is … the atmosphere.
2. To mark out or lay down the limits of; to enclose within limits, limit, bound, confine (usually fig.); esp. to confine within narrow limits, to restrict the free or extended action of, to hem in, restrain, abridge.
1529. More, Dial. Heresy, I. Wks. 121/2. He is not comprehensyble nor circumscribed no where.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. iii. 22. Therefore must his choyce be circumscrib’d.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 471, ¶ 5. Who can imagine that the Existence of a Creature is to be circumscribed by Time … whose Thoughts are not?
1835. I. Taylor, Spir. Despot., iii. 94. Every thing was marked out, circumscribed, and fixed in their theology.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 67. A man … should not circumscribe his activity by any inflexible fence of rigid rules.
b. To mark off, to define logically.
1846. Mill, Logic, Introd. § 1. The most correct … mode of circumscribing them by a general description.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. iii. (1864), 255. The Appetites commonly recognised … are circumscribed by the following property.
3. Geom. To describe (a figure) about another figure so as to touch it at certain points or parts without cutting it. b. With the figure so described as subject of the verb.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, IV. Introd. 110. How a triangle … may be circumscribed about a circle.
1571. Digges, Pantom., IV. xxiii. E e. Tetraedron may be conteyned or circumscribed of all the other foure regular bodies.
1660. Barrow, Euclid, IV. Def. 4. (1714), 76–7.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 285. A right-lined figure Circumscribes a circle, or the circle is inscribed in it.
1840. Lardner, Geom., 87. The circle is … inscribed in the polygon, and the polygon is circumscribed around the circle. Ibid., 231. A regular tetraedron circumscribing the octaedron.
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 141. So as to form a (simple) quadrilateral circumscribed to the conic.
† 4. To write or inscribe around (a coin, etc., with an inscription, or an inscription on or about a coin, etc.) Obs.
1614. Selden, Titles Hon., 145. An old coin … circumscribed thus ΦΙΛΕΤΑΙΡΟΥ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΩϹ.
a. 1692. Ashmole, Antiq. Berks., I. 180 (T.). The Verge … is also lined with brass, and thereon is circumscribed this epitaph.
b. To join in signing a ‘round-robin.’ See CIRCUMSCRIBER.
