circulating

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of circulate.

   Warm air was circulating through the vents when the heater switched on.

   Rumors about the merger kept circulating despite official denials.

   Note

   The verb form works both ways round. Air goes on circulating by itself, while someone circulating a memo or a rumor sets it moving. At a party, a host who is circulating moves from guest to guest. Mathematics has its own use: a circulating decimal is one whose digits repeat, so 0.333… is circulating, not merely long.

2. 2
   adjective

   Moving about freely from one place to another.

   Circulating currents distribute warmth evenly throughout the heated pool.

   The building relies on circulating air to keep every floor at a steady temperature.

   Similarflowing, moving

   Oppositestagnant, still

   Note

   People drift as readily as air does: guests circulating slowly through a room are moving about in this sense, just as warm currents are in a heated pool. Used of a crowd, it suggests mingling, with movement that keeps passing among others rather than heading anywhere in particular. That idea of motion along a round is what the library sense borrows.

3. 3
   adjective

   Lending from a collection, especially of books, to people who hold a membership.

   The town's circulating library lent her three novels for a small monthly fee.

   Members of the circulating collection could keep each book for two weeks.

   Note

   A sense that lives almost entirely in one phrase: circulating library. It stands only before the noun. A library can be a circulating one, but in this meaning it is never simply said to be circulating. The name describes the books rather than the building: they go out to members and come back, the same coming and going as the "moving about" meaning.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3