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surround

suh-ROWND/səˈɹaʊnd/

Verbsurrounds, surrounding, surrounded

Noun pluralsurrounds

4 meanings of surround

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To be present on every side of something, or to form a ring extending in all directions around it.

    A ring of ancient oaks surrounds the manor on every side.

    Reporters surround the senator whenever he leaves the building.

    Similarencircle, ring, enclose, circle, encompass

    Note

    A word that began in water rather than in circles: Middle English sourrounden meant "to submerge, overflow," going back through French to Late Latin superundō, built on unda, "wave." Today it takes a plain object, turns reflexive easily (men at a cold furnace would surround themselves with heated blocks of iron), and stretches to the abstract, as when stubborn opinions surround a person.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To enclose or hem something in on every side so that it cannot escape.

    Troops surround the fortress, cutting off every route out.

    The cats surrounded the frightened mouse so it could not flee.

    Similarencircle, besiege, trap, corner

  3. 3
    nounBritishcountable
    A border, frame, or casing that encloses or runs around something.

    The plumber installed a chrome surround around the new sink.

    A decorative surround framed the bathroom mirror.

    Similarborder, frame, casing, edging, trim

    Note

    Here the verb becomes a name for the thing doing the surrounding, a usage marked as British. It is concrete and usually fitted: the Delft tiles that ring a fireplace in Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1963) would, taken together, make a fireplace surround. The plural is regular, surrounds, and the noun names the frame itself rather than the act of enclosing.

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To pass around something or travel completely about it; to circumnavigate.
    Note

    A traveler's sense, now obsolete: to surround the world was to journey all the way around it, not to enclose it. Thomas Fuller, writing in 1650, still uses it of a body carried solemnly around a country rather than slipped in by a back door. In older prose, read it as "go around"; in modern writing it would be taken as hemming something in.

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Origin

From Middle English sourrounden ('to submerge, overflow'), from Middle French souronder, suronder, from Late Latin superundō, formed from super ('over') plus undō ('to rise in waves'), which comes from unda ('wave').