circled

verb

past tense of circle
1
as in surrounded
to form a circle around everyone circled the lectern and waited their turn to read from the Bible

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance
2
as in orbited
to travel completely around with a look of extreme frustration, the commander circled the new recruit

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of circled Black-fly bites from the week before had crusted near our hairlines and circled our wrists. — John Todd, Outdoor Life, 9 July 2026 Earlier in 2026, a crew of four astronauts circled the moon without landing during the Artemis II mission. — Eric Lagatta, USA Today, 6 July 2026 Holloway has spent the decade since assembling one of the great featherweight résumés in company history, which is why a fight nobody circled in 2013 now headlines the biggest week on the UFC calendar. — Brian Mazique, Forbes.com, 4 July 2026 As astronauts circled the Earth, aquanauts moved into seafloor labs. — Bill Gourgey, Popular Science, 2 July 2026 Photographers and tabloid reporters circled incessantly — but not on the first day of autumn in 1996. — Kevin Dolak, HollywoodReporter, 2 July 2026 The two embraced and kissed as an NBC New York helicopter circled overhead. — Daniel Arkin, NBC news, 1 July 2026 In this case, neither side could confidently trumpet the science, even though their arguments circled around it. — Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker, 1 July 2026 All season, Shamea and Porsha have circled each other, barely uttering a direct word, but the tensions seep to the rest of the group, trickling into every interaction. — Ile-Ife Okantah, Vulture, 29 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for circled
  1. surrounded
  2. orbited
  3. encircled
  4. traversed
  5. ringed
  6. crossed
  7. rounded
Verb
  • While no official cause of death has been released and no charges have been made in Wells’ case, his death sparked racial tensions and widespread scrutiny after photos showed Wells surrounded by White friends while on the trip.
    — Holly Yan, CNN Money, 15 July 2026
  • Like its rooms, all three restaurants face the ocean; don’t miss dinner at the Ocean Grill, where you’ll be surrounded by three walls of 30-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling windows.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 July 2026
Definition of surrounded
Verb
  • Although the black hole itself is dark, it is orbited by a normal star with a mass 78% that of our sun.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 14 July 2026
  • The satellite has orbited Earth about once every hour and a half for more than two decades, and over time, friction with particles in the upper atmosphere has caused its orbit to decay.
    — Anna Y. Q. Ho, Scientific American, 29 June 2026
Definition of orbited
Verb
  • Ferguson’s ring features a central ruby encircled by diamonds that resemble flower petals.
    — Bailey Bujnosek, InStyle, 11 July 2026
  • In the 1940s, the Queen switched rings, and began wearing a ladylike large pearl, encircled with diamonds.
    — Hadley Hall Meares, Vanity Fair, 6 July 2026
Definition of encircled
Verb
  • Bear tracks showed where a pair of grizzlies had traversed our island and swum to the far shore.
    — John Todd, Outdoor Life, 9 July 2026
  • Some traffic traversed the strait on Tuesday, according to data and analytics company Kpler, which verified 41 crossings compared to 36 on Monday.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 8 July 2026
Definition of traversed
Verb
  • Other area Costco stores are ringed around the suburbs, ten-plus miles from the urban core.
    — Dylan Lysen, Kansas City Star, 15 July 2026
  • Even Kerameikos, the ancient necropolis Thucydides called the city’s most beautiful quarter, comes ringed not with tour buses but with the kind of neighborhood tables—Osteria Mamma, Proveleggios—that locals keep to themselves.
    — Condé Nast Traveler, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 July 2026
Definition of ringed
Verb
  • On Saturday, 19 vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz in either direction, but only one openly signaled its inbound transit along the Omani coast, Kpler data show.
    — Weilun Soon, Fortune, 5 July 2026
  • Unlike last year, however, no Russian drones or missiles crossed the sky above the campsite on their way toward Kyiv.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 5 July 2026
Definition of crossed
Verb
  • Trent Grisham rounded third and headed for home on Ben Rice’s one-out double off the wall.
    — Fabian Ardaya, New York Times, 18 July 2026
  • The ensemble cast is rounded out by Kennedi Butler, McKenzie Hays, Tiegen Fryberger and Zelalem Oestreich.
    — Tanya Fedak, Variety, 17 July 2026
Definition of rounded

Browse Nearby Words

circle
circled
circles
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Circled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/circled. Accessed 18 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on circled

Nglish: Translation of circled for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

The Longest Long Words List

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

The Words of the Week - Jul 17
See More

Popular

See More

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
child-detective
Spot the Misspelled Word July 2026 Those little red underlines can't help you now...
See All