circle

The word “circle” means a perfectly round, flat shape where every point on the edge is the same distance from the centre. In plain terms, the round shape, or a group of people someone associates with, or the act of moving/marking in a ring.

“Circle” is pronounced SUR-kuhl (/ˈsɜɹkəl/ in IPA).

Here is “circle” used in a sentence: “She drew a circle around the correct answer.”

Depending on how it is used, “circle” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “circle” comes from Latin. From Old French cercle and Latin circulus, a diminutive of circus ("ring"), itself from Greek kirkos.

“Circle” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Circle” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a perfectly round, flat shape where every point on the edge is the same distance from the centre.

A circle is flat — a two-dimensional shape you can draw on paper. A sphere is its three-dimensional version, like a ball or a globe, round in every direction. A coin shows a circle; a marble is a sphere. Think of a sphere as a circle given depth and volume.

A circle is perfectly round, with every point on its edge exactly the same distance from the centre. An ellipse is a stretched or squashed circle — an oval shape with two different widths. Every circle is technically a special, perfectly even ellipse, but most ellipses are longer one way than the other.

The centre is the point in the middle. The radius is the distance from the centre to the edge, and the diameter is the full width across, passing through the centre — always twice the radius. The circumference is the distance all the way around the outside edge.

Circles are everywhere — coins, wheels, clock faces, plates, buttons, and the rim of a cup seen from above. Anywhere something is perfectly round and flat, you are looking at a circle. Wheels are perhaps the most important example, since their circular shape is what lets them roll smoothly.