encircle

present singular third person encircles · participle present encircling · participle past encircled · past encircled

1. transitiveTo surround, form a circle around.

   "Friday!" she called out, bursting open the doors and quickly encircling her friend in the warmth of her arms.

   1983 February 5, Andrea Loewenstein, “Snowbound”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 28, page 10

   2 more examples

   […]two Russian armies would advance into East Prussia, one westward from the Niemen, the other northward from the Narew, with the object of encircling and immobilizing all enemy forces there.

   1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 70

   Down through the centuries, as the Holy Spirit graces person after person in land after land, they form together a grand company of "friends of God and prophets" (Wis. 7:27); a community of holy people endeavoring to live their lives praising God, loving each other and struggling for justice and peace. This is a company that not only encircles the globe in space but stretches backward and forward in time.

   2000 June 17, Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Mary of Nazareth: Friend of God and Prophet”, in America, volume 182, number 21

2. transitiveTo move or go around completely.

   It is also customary in the Orient and among Sephardim for the mourners to encircle the coffin of an erudite person seven times and recite Yoshayv besayter while making each circuit.

   1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 385