circular
/ˈsəːkjʊlə
/adjective
1Having the form of a circle: the building features a circular atrium...
- Recent donations include the purchase of picnic tables, a circular seat round the willow tree by the lake, and benches in the park.
- Surrounding the circle will be a circular grass mound, carpeted in bluebells.
- The most striking design element of the atrium is the circular stair that turns 180 degrees between floors.
Synonyms
round, disc-shaped, disc-like;
ring-shaped, hoop-shaped, hoop-like, annular
technical cycloidal, discoid, discoidal
1.1(Of a movement or journey) starting and finishing at the same place and often following roughly the circumference of an imaginary circle: a circular walk...
- She followed the perpetually circular movement of the revolving doors, stepping out onto Kyanka Street.
- We explored the mountains on a circular tour, walking every other day to a new camp.
- For him, the journey of his young adulthood was a futile circular movement.
2 Logic (Of an argument) already containing an assumption of what is to be proved, and therefore fallacious: the reality of standard English rests on the circular argument that that is good which good users use...
- This is a classic circular argument, in which the conclusion is already present in the premise.
- These estimates can be highly biased and produce a circular argument.
- Such a circular argument, which relies on its own suppositions as proof, can be used to justify anything.
3 [attributive] (Of a letter or advertisement) for distribution to a large number of people: a circular letter was sent asking for support...
- He sent a circular letter to numerous legal practices in Scotland, asking various questions about the firms' knowledge of him.
- A circular letter was then sent by post to all past and present serving members.
- He put the circular letter in the rubbish bin.
noun
A letter or advertisement which is distributed to a large number of people: I received a circular from a building society...
- Anyone who knows me well will know how much I loathe email circulars and chain letters.
- The city health authority distributed circulars to hospitals to prepare for a possible dengue fever outbreak.
- His strategy was to mobilize church members by distributing circulars at mass.
Synonyms
leaflet, pamphlet, handbill;
flyer, advertisement, notice;
North American mailer, folder;
North American & Australian dodger
Derivatives
circularity
/ noun ...- Does all of this mean that there is a kind of fatal circularity in neuroscience - that the brain necessarily uses itself to study itself?
- The conversation was taking on the kind of circularity I've experienced in arguments with religious zealots.
- Hawa's own life is a series of funny and fantastic escapades, with a marked quality of circularity.
circularly
- The new materials emit nearly perfect circularly polarized light - the kind necessary to create 3D displays and striking color images.
- Block concludes that consciousness cannot be defined other than circularly, via rough synonyms (‘awareness,’ etc.) or ostensively, through examples.
- Post-structuralism usually allows no appeal to a reality outside language; it sees every discourse as circularly self-confirming.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French circulier, from late Latin circularis, from Latin circulus 'small ring' (see circle).