Verb

(circumscrib)

To draw a line around; to encircle.

To limit narrowly; to restrict.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].}}

(geometry) To draw the smallest circle or higher-dimensional sphere that has (a polyhedron, polygon, etc.) in its interior.

Verb

(mitigat)

To reduce, lessen, or decrease.

* 1795 —

Measures are pursuing to prevent or mitigate the usual consequences of such outrages, and with the hope of their succeeding at least to avert general hostility.

* 1813 —

But in yielding to it the retaliation has been mitigated as much as possible, both in its extent and in its character...

* 1896 —

Then they tell us that vaccination will mitigate the disease that it will make it milder.

* 1901 — , ch 7

Then I discovered the brilliance of the landscape around was mitigated by blue spectacles.

* 1920 —

The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten.

To downplay.