Circumnavigate

//ˌsɝ.kəmˈnæv.ɪ.ɡeɪt// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To travel completely around somewhere or something, especially by sail. transitive

    "We circumnavigated the Mediterranean."

  2. 2
    travel around, either by plane or ship wordnet
  3. 3
    To circumvent or bypass. transitive

    "Rebel of the tournament: Saudi Arabia’s Malek Al Hawsawi, who circumnavigated Fifa’s ban on jewellery by keeping his ring in his mouth."

  4. 4
    To sail around the world. intransitive

    "Patrick Childress, who solo circumnavigated on a Catalina 27 in 1982, stresses the value of eggs, which will keep at least six weeks if previously unrefrigerated and oiled with vegetable shortening."

Synonyms

All synonyms
circumventcompasscompassgo aroundboatbypass

Example

More examples

"We circumnavigated the Mediterranean."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin circumnāvigātus, perfect passive participle of circumnāvigō (“sail round something, circumnavigate”), from circum (“about, around”) + nāvigō (“sail, navigate”), from nāvis (“ship”) + agō (“do”). By surface analysis, circum- + navigate.

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