Noun

(en noun)

The surroundings of, and influences on, a particular item of interest.

The natural world or ecosystem.

* {{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]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment .}}

All the elements over which a designer has no control and that affect a system or its inputs and outputs.

A particular political or social setting, arena or condition.

(computing) The software and/or hardware existing on any particular computer system.

(programming) The environment of a function at a point during the execution of a program is the set of identifiers in the function's scope and their bindings at that point.

(computing) The set of variables and their values in a namespace that an operating system associates with a process.

Noun

(en noun)

(lb) A two-dimensional geometric figure, a line, consisting of the set of all those points in a plane that are equally distant from another point.

:The set of all points (x'', ''y'') such that (x-1)² + y² = r² is a circle of radius ''r around

A two-dimensional geometric figure, a disk, consisting of the set of all those points of a plane at a distance less than or equal to a fixed distance from another point.

Any thin three-dimensional equivalent of the geometric figures.

:

A curve that more or less forms part or all of a circle.

:

Orbit.

A specific group of persons.

:

* (1800-1859)

*:As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened.

*

*:At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle , a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

*

*:“I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers,, the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"

*1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)

*:The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles .

(lb) A line comprising two semicircles of 30 yards radius centred on the wickets joined by straight lines parallel to the pitch used to enforce field restrictions in a one-day match.

(lb) A ritual circle that is cast three times deosil and closes three times widdershins either in the air with a wand or literally with stones or other items used for worship.

(lb) A traffic circle or roundabout.

*2011 , Charles E. Webb, Downfall and Freedom , p.120:

*:He arrived at the lakefront and drove around the circle where the amusement park and beach used to be when he was a kid

(lb) Compass; circuit; enclosure.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:in the circle of this forest

(lb) An instrument of observation, whose graduated limb consists of an entire circle. When fixed to a wall in an observatory, it is called a mural circle''; when mounted with a telescope on an axis and in Y's, in the plane of the meridian, a ''meridian'' or ''transit circle''; when involving the principle of reflection, like the sextant, a ''reflecting circle''; and when that of repeating an angle several times continuously along the graduated limb, a ''repeating circle .

A series ending where it begins, and repeating itself.

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:Thus in a circle runs the peasant's pain.

(lb) A form of argument in which two or more unproved statements are used to prove each other; inconclusive reasoning.

*(Joseph Glanvill) (1636-1680)

*:That heavy bodies descend by gravity; and, again, that gravity is a quality whereby a heavy body descends, is an impertinent circle and teaches nothing.

Indirect form of words; circumlocution.

* (1579-1625)

*:Has he given the lie, / In circle , or oblique, or semicircle.

A territorial division or district.

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