Lynne McTaggart
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The Circular History of Circumvent
If you’ve ever felt as if someone was running circles around those trying to get something done, you have an idea of the origins of circumvent—it comes from the Latin word circumventus, a form of the verb circumvenire, meaning “to surround or go around” (circumvenire combines the adverb circum, “in a circle around,” and the verb venire, “to come”). The earliest uses of circumvent referred to a tactic of hunting or warfare in which the quarry or enemy was encircled and captured. This meaning doesn’t exactly square with modern uses of the word. Today, circumvent more often suggests avoidance than entrapment; to come full circle, it typically means to “get around” someone or something, as by evading a problem or avoiding the law.
Examples of circumvent in a Sentence
Jay McInerney, New York Times Book Review, 10 June 2007
… Rondon and Lyra paddled to the right side, where they found a channel that circumvented the worst part of the rapids.
—Candice Millard, The River of Doubt, 2005
His appreciation of this finer side of life is circumvented by a cynicism that he tells me is common to Eastern Europeans.
—Lynne Tillman, Motion Sickness, 1991
The thirty-six-hour workweek established by the garment-industry code was circumvented by having the workers punch out at five P.M., leave by the back door (their usual entrance), then return by the front door and work until eleven P.M. without punching the clock.
—Melissa Hield, Speaking For Ourselves, (1977) 1984
We circumvented the problem by using a different program.
He found a way to circumvent the law.
Farai Mutsaka, Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2026
While critics argue these measures can be easily circumvented with VPNs, Snapchat’s aggressive lockdown proves that platforms are finally feeling compelled to act in defense of a wider social media ban.
—Paul Monckton, Forbes.com, 18 June 2026
Anthropic had brushed off the White House’s concerns that guardrails on its Fable 5 model could be circumvented, adding to the string of fights the AI lab has gotten into with the White House.
—Liz Rappaport, semafor.com, 16 June 2026
Gun-rights groups and manufacturers counter that the law is designed to circumvent federal protections and burden lawful businesses.
—Claire Carter, The Washington Examiner, 15 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for circumvent
Cite this Entry
“Circumvent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circumvent. Accessed 21 Jun. 2026.
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circumvent
verb
