Circumgyrate

//ˌsɝ.kəmˈd͡ʒaɪ.ɹeɪt// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To move around something. intransitive

    "Only an incident in the sun’s system is eight small potatoes, called planets, circumgyrating at distances from 36 million to 2,791 million miles from the central sun."

  2. 2
    To cause to move around something; to cause to orbit. transitive

    "The soul about it self circumgyrates Her various forms,"

  3. 3
    To turn in a circle around an axis or fixed point. intransitive

    "Indirect power is the same as that which is sometimes called directive power or potestas directiva. For the word “direct,” one day, got up and turned its back upon itself. Its meaning has circumgyrated."

  4. 4
    To cause to turn in a circle around an axis or fixed point. transitive

    "[…] a wheel, when circumgyrated upon its Axe, is sensibly moved, but not removed from one place to another."

  5. 5
    To make circuits (around an area or space). intransitive

    "[…] every motion of the small fish playing in its [the stream’s] pellucid pools, was as distinctly visible as those of the unfortunate goldfish one sometimes observes pensively circumgyrating in the interior of its enchanted globular ball in the shop-window."

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  1. 6
    To be formed into a bent or curved shape (around something). intransitive

    "1850, Oliver Tiffany, Canada Patent No. 298,“Certain improvement in the apparatus for warming houses,” Patents of Canada, from 1849 to 1855, Volume 2, Toronto, 1865, […] it circumgyrates round the stove, and exposes its large surfaces to the air warming space […]"

  2. 7
    To form into a bent or curved shape. transitive

    "[…] that […] all the Glands of the Body should be Congeries of various sorts of Vessels curl’d, circumgyrated and complicated together, whereby they give the Blood time to stop and separate through the Pores of the capillary Vessels into the Secretory ones,"

Synonyms

All synonyms
rotatespincontortorbitrevolvetwine

Example

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"Only an incident in the sun’s system is eight small potatoes, called planets, circumgyrating at distances from 36 million to 2,791 million miles from the central sun."

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin circumgȳrō; equivalent to circum- + gyrate.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.