Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle.
  • transitive verb To enclose or confine on all sides so as to bar escape or outside communication.
  • noun Something, such as fencing or a border, that surrounds.
  • noun The area around a thing or place.
  • noun Surroundings; environment.
  • noun A method of hunting wild animals by surrounding them and driving them to a place from which they cannot escape.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To overflow; inundate.
  • To encompass; environ; inclose on all sides, as a body of troops, surrounded by hostile forces, so as to cut off communication or retreat; invest, as a fortified place: as, to surround a city; to surround a detachment of the enemy.
  • To form an inclosure round; environ; encircle: as, a wall or ditch surrounds the city.
  • To make the circuit of; circumnavigate.
  • Synonyms To fence in, coop up.
  • To overflow.
  • noun A method of hunting some animals, such as buffaloes, by surrounding them and driving them over a precipice, or into a deep ravine or other place from which they cannot escape.
  • noun A cordon of hunters formed for the purpose of capturing animals by surrounding and driving them.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To inclose on all sides; to encompass; to environ.
  • transitive verb To lie or be on all sides of; to encircle.
  • transitive verb obsolete To pass around; to travel about; to circumnavigate.
  • transitive verb (Mil.) To inclose, as a body of troops, between hostile forces, so as to cut off means of communication or retreat; to invest, as a city.
  • noun U.S. A method of hunting some animals, as the buffalo, by surrounding a herd, and driving them over a precipice, into a ravine, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To encircle or simultaneously extend on all sides of something.
  • verb transitive To enclose or confine something on all sides so as to prevent escape.
  • noun UK Anything, such as a fence or border that surrounds something.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the area in which something exists or lives
  • verb surround with a wall in order to fortify
  • verb extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle
  • verb surround so as to force to give up
  • verb envelop completely

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English surrounden, to inundate, from Old French suronder, from Late Latin superundāre : Latin super-, super- + Latin undāre, to rise in waves (from unda, wave; see wed- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French soronder, from Late Latin superundare, from super + undare.

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