circumstanced

1. 1
   adjectivein compounds

   Placed in the particular situation or set of conditions indicated by the surrounding description.

   Similarly circumstanced tenants banded together to challenge the new rent.

   Those comfortably circumstanced rarely notice how high the cost of living has climbed.

   Similarsituated, positioned

   Note

   A word that seldom stands alone: it needs an adverb in front of it to say what the situation is, as in well circumstanced, comfortably circumstanced, similarly circumstanced. Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) describes a girl as "comfortably circumstanced." The word itself is never compared. Degree comes from the adverb, so a family is better circumstanced, not "more circumstanced."

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of circumstance.

   A run of bad harvests circumstanced the village to depend on outside aid.

   They found themselves circumstanced by debts they had never agreed to.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here: the plain past (bad harvests circumstanced the village) and the participle after have or be (they were circumstanced by debt). The verb behind it leans toward money and resources, meaning to be placed in terms of what one has to live on. In the passive it shades into the adjective of situation, where an adverb does the describing.

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