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circumscribe
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  • Who could imagine a life so circumscribed that it excluded honey?†   (source)
  • He can't afford to anger them unnecessarily or he'll lose the support of his people, so his actions on our behalf have been severely circumscribed.†   (source)
  • The narrator feels her figurative horizons are also circumscribed by what seem like local certainties: early pregnancy and an unsatisfactory marriage to a man who will probably die young.†   (source)
  • Then it was evening, and he'd left the South Beach wood path to look at her home of worn cedar slats and across the fields to where she lived: fields circumscribed by tall cedar trees and lit by spindly moonlight.†   (source)
  • It was customary for a home that had suffered a bereavement to be filled with relatives and well-wishers for many days, but this practice was presently circumscribed by the dangers involved in making a journey in the city, and while people did come to see Saeed's father and Saeed, most came furtively, and could not stay long.†   (source)
  • For others, though, there was no mistaking the reasons for their flight, the specific people who had driven them to flee, or even how their seemingly circumscribed personal stories fit into the broader political narratives of their countries and ethnic groups.†   (source)
  • It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now.†   (source)
  • Who's to say that Shiva's being so different, his circumscribed, self-contained inner world that asked nothing of others, didn't come from that separation, or that my restlessness, my sense of being incomplete, didn't originate at that moment?†   (source)
  • At first, Max thought it might be Astaroth's seal; however, instead of the Demon's mark, this circle enclosed twined sheaves of grain that overlapped one another to circumscribe three smaller circles that might have been coins.†   (source)
  • To circumscribe contact.†   (source)
  • Wasn't there some inexpressible meaning in the fact that my entire experience of Sophie and Nathan was circumscribed by a bed, from the moment—which now seemed centuries past—when I first heard them above me in the glorious circus of their lovemaking to the final tableau on that same bed, whose image would stay with me until dotage or my own death erased it from my mind?†   (source)
  • We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.†   (source)
  • She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.†   (source)
  • He illustrated the despairs of pi for the young man with a precise, painfully executed drawing of a circle trapped between two polygons, circumscribing one, circumscribed by the other, each with as many countless tiny sides as it was humanly possible to draw.†   (source)
  • A heavy unbroken crust of cloud stretched across the sky, shutting out every speck of heaven; and a distant halo which hung over the town of Casterbridge was visible against the black concave, the luminosity appearing the brighter by its great contrast with the circumscribing darkness.†   (source)
  • When he heard the brisk challenge of the men-at-arms of the abbey, around the crenelated, circumscribing wall of Saint-Germain, he turned aside, took a path which presented itself between the abbey and the lazar-house of the bourg, and at the expiration of a few minutes found himself on the verge of the Pré-aux-Clercs.†   (source)
  • There is always an inertia to be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct—not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.†   (source)
  • Thus in the United States the inexorable opinion of the public carefully circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of domestic interest and duties, and forbids her to step beyond it.†   (source)
  • Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.†   (source)
  • The same equality which allows every citizen to conceive these lofty hopes, renders all the citizens less able to realize them: it circumscribes their powers on every side, whilst it gives freer scope to their desires.†   (source)
  • But if the equality of conditions gives some resources to all the members of the community, it also prevents any of them from having resources of great extent, which necessarily circumscribes their desires within somewhat narrow limits.†   (source)
  • It was strange because it was circumscribed, because it was concentrated on a single intention.†   (source)
  • The more circumscribed became her state, the more entrancing seemed this other.†   (source)
  • She was now a thin, though rugged, women of twenty-seven, with ideas of life colored by her husband's and fast hardening into narrower conceptions of pleasure and duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth.†   (source)
  • When the other travellers closed their eyes, which they did one by one—even the kitten curling itself up in the basket, weary of its too circumscribed play—the boy remained just as before.†   (source)
  • The world (which is circumscribed by lofty impassable mountains) has been given into the hand of the high-born, and this Rajah they knew: he was of their own royal house.†   (source)
  • "Yes—I know," Selden assented curtly, turning back into the room, but only to stir about with restless steps in the circumscribed space between door and window.†   (source)
  • …the mountains of flowers that were heaped upon their altars; while underneath, the sun cast a square of light upon the ground, as though it had shone in upon them through a window; the scent that swept out over me from them was as rich, and as circumscribed in its range, as though I had been standing before the Lady-altar, and the flowers, themselves adorned also, held out each its little bunch of glittering stamens with an air of inattention, fine, radiating 'nerves' in the flamboyant…†   (source)
  • But here you felt yourself closer to the wide, deep ocean than on the shore of that North Sea which seemed always circumscribed; here you could draw a long breath as you looked out upon the even vastness; and the west wind, the dear soft salt wind of England, uplifted the heart and at the same time melted it to tenderness.†   (source)
  • Like many gifted Jews, Naphta was by instinct both a revolutionary and an aristocrat:—a socialist, yet obsessed with the dream of participating in a proud, elegant, exclusive, closely circumscribed world.†   (source)
  • Incarcerated, withdrawn from the world, compelled by the highly circumscribed nature of this death house life to find solace or relief in his own thoughts, Clyde's, like every other temperament similarly limited, was compelled to devote itself either to, the past, the present or the future.†   (source)
  • He illustrated the despairs of pi for the young man with a precise, painfully executed drawing of a circle trapped between two polygons, circumscribing one, circumscribed by the other, each with as many countless tiny sides as it was humanly possible to draw.†   (source)
  • This remarkable epoch is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal lines even at the present day.†   (source)
  • It contained neither secret passage nor trap-door, and unless where the door by which she had entered joined the main building, seemed to be circumscribed by the round exterior wall of the turret.†   (source)
  • Kate went first, leaning upon her brother's arm, and talking with him and Mr Frank Cheeryble; and Mrs Nickleby and the elder gentleman followed at a short distance, the kindness of the good merchant, his interest in the welfare of Nicholas, and his admiration of Kate, so operating upon the good lady's feelings, that the usual current of her speech was confined within very narrow and circumscribed limits.†   (source)
  • Their effects, thus circumscribed, are still exceedingly great; and I trust I may be pardoned if I pause for a moment to survey them.†   (source)
  • Dr. Flint left him no property, and his own means had become circumscribed, while a wife and children depended upon him for support.†   (source)
  • If the laws had made it as feeble and as circumscribed as it is in the Union, its influence would very soon become still more preponderant.†   (source)
  • Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no longer his nor did he wish for it.†   (source)
  • Seth, who was easily touched, shed tears, and tried to recall, as he had done continually since his father's death, all that he had heard of the possibility that a single moment of consciousness at the last might be a moment of pardon and reconcilement; for was it not written in the very psalm they were singing that the Divine dealings were not measured and circumscribed by time?†   (source)
  • Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations!†   (source)
  • But her mother's white, intense, respectable countenance, with its formal gaze, and its circumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and sealed; a thing of parchment, ink, and ruled lines.†   (source)
  • "Friend hunter, or trapper," returned the naturalist, clearing his throat in some intellectual confusion at the vigorous attack of his companion, "your deductions, if admitted by the world, would sadly circumscribe the efforts of reason, and much abridge the boundaries of knowledge."†   (source)
  • Although no absolute satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity.†   (source)
  • To reduce hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority, the only means that I am acquainted with are to circumscribe its sphere of action beforehand, gradually to diminish its prerogatives, and to accustom the people to live without its protection.†   (source)
  • For our part, we reserve to the word its ancient and precise, circumscribed and determined significance, and we restrict slang to slang.†   (source)
  • In the United States the action of the Government may be slackened with impunity, because it is always weak and circumscribed.†   (source)
  • The forms and limits of the State are distinct and circumscribed; since it represents a certain number of objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all.†   (source)
  • Up to this point, everything above him had been, to his gaze, merely a smooth, limpid and simple surface; there was nothing incomprehensible, nothing obscure; nothing that was not defined, regularly disposed, linked, precise, circumscribed, exact, limited, closed, fully provided for; authority was a plane surface; there BOOK FOURTH.†   (source)
  • The President of the United States is in the possession of almost royal prerogatives, which he has no opportunity of exercising; and those privileges which he can at present use are very circumscribed.†   (source)
  • …itself arises from the complex nature of the constitution of the United States, which consists of two distinct social structures, connected and, as it were, encased one within the other; two governments, completely separate and almost independent, the one fulfilling the ordinary duties and responding to the daily and indefinite calls of a community, the other circumscribed within certain limits, and only exercising an exceptional authority over the general interests of the country.†   (source)
  • They strain their faculties to the utmost to achieve paltry results, and this cannot fail speedily to limit their discernment and to circumscribe their powers.†   (source)
  • The principal efforts of the men of those times were required to strengthen, aggrandize, and secure the supreme power; and on the other hand, to circumscribe individual independence within narrower limits, and to subject private interests to the interests of the public.†   (source)
  • Thus the democratic tendency which leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the State, and to circumscribe the rights of private persons, is much more rapid and constant amongst those democratic nations which are exposed by their position to great and frequent wars, than amongst all others.†   (source)
  • In aristocratic armies, the private soldier's ambition is therefore circumscribed within very narrow limits.†   (source)
  • Circumscribed by the character of his country and his age, the moralist must learn to vindicate his principles in that position.†   (source)
  • As all fortunes are scanty, the passions of men are naturally circumscribed—their imagination limited, their pleasures simple.†   (source)
  • When all living men are enfeebled, the will of the dead is less respected: it is circumscribed within a narrow range, beyond which it is annulled or checked by the supreme power of the laws.†   (source)
  • But in proportion as the light of faith grows dim, the range of man's sight is circumscribed, as if the end and aim of human actions appeared every day to be more within his reach.†   (source)
  • If a large number of men apply this particular exception to a great variety of different purposes, the sphere of the central power extends insensibly in all directions, although each of them wishes it to be circumscribed.†   (source)
  • Under a free government, as most public offices are elective, the men whose elevated minds or aspiring hopes are too closely circumscribed in private life, constantly feel that they cannot do without the population which surrounds them.†   (source)
  • If I were to inquire what passion is most natural to men who are stimulated and circumscribed by the obscurity of their birth or the mediocrity of their fortune, I could discover none more peculiarly appropriate to their condition than this love of physical prosperity.†   (source)
  • It is believed by some that modern society will be ever changing its aspect; for myself, I fear that it will ultimately be too invariably fixed in the same institutions, the same prejudices, the same manners, so that mankind will be stopped and circumscribed; that the mind will swing backwards and forwards forever, without begetting fresh ideas; that man will waste his strength in bootless and solitary trifling; and, though in continual motion, that humanity will cease to advance.†   (source)
  • Circumscribed within the narrow space which politics leave them, rich men in democracies eagerly embark in commercial enterprise: there they can extend and employ their natural advantages; and indeed it is even by the boldness and the magnitude of their industrial speculations that we may measure the slight esteem in which productive industry would have been held by them, if they had been born amidst an aristocracy.†   (source)
  • ...makes the Messiah take a great pair of compasses from the armoury of heaven to circumscribe His work?   (source)
    circumscribe = draw a circle around or surround
  • Though I, uncircumscribed myself, retire, And put not forth my goodness, which is free To act or not, Necessity and Chance Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncircumscribed means not and reverses the meaning of circumscribed. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it.†   (source)
  • It is circumscribed, not because there is any very formidable prejudice against English locutions as such, [Pg139] but simply because recognizably English locutions, in a good many cases, do not fit into the American language.†   (source)
  • …corporal, inasmuch as complete mental intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there remained a period of 9 months and 1 day during which, in consequence of a preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed.†   (source)
  • Those writers could with greater ease have conveyed a heroe from one country to another, nay from one world to another, and have brought him back again, than a poor circumscribed modern can deliver him from a jail.†   (source)
  • Shalt thou give law to God? shalt thou dispute With him the points of liberty, who made Thee what thou art, and formed the Powers of Heaven Such as he pleased, and circumscribed their being?†   (source)
  • There are others which have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence within their spheres.†   (source)
  • For when I consider how short were the Lawes of antient times; and how they grew by degrees still longer; me thinks I see a contention between the Penners, and Pleaders of the Law; the former seeking to circumscribe the later; and the later to evade their circumscriptions; and that the Pleaders have got the Victory.†   (source)
  • …Negative Attributes, as Infinite, Eternall, Incomprehensible; or Superlatives, as Most High, Most Great, and the like; or Indefinite, as Good, Just, Holy, Creator; and in such sense, as if he meant not to declare what he is, (for that were to circumscribe him within the limits of our Fancy,) but how much wee admire him, and how ready we would be to obey him; which is a signe of Humility, and of a Will to honour him as much as we can: For there is but one Name to signifie our Conception…†   (source)
  • Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things: One foot he centered, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure; And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, This be thy just circumference, O World!†   (source)
  • Justice through them may be administered with ease and despatch; and appeals may be safely circumscribed within a narrow compass.†   (source)
  • We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.†   (source)
  • The extent of this federal district is sufficiently circumscribed to satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature.†   (source)
  • The jurisdiction of her several courts, general and local, of law, of equity, of admiralty, etc., is not less a source of frequent and intricate discussions, sufficiently denoting the indeterminate limits by which they are respectively circumscribed.†   (source)
  • This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and…†   (source)
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