English
circle
Circle comes from Old French cercle ‘circle (shape)’, and goes back to Latin circus.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcircus1‘circle’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcirculus1diminutive of circus
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400cercle1‘circle’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500circle1
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1598–1600circle1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English circle
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1598–1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It: “in the circle of this forest”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcircusWiktionary, English circle‘circle’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcirculusWiktionary, English circlediminutive of circus
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400cercleWiktionary, English circle‘circle’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500circleWiktionary, English circle
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1598–1600circleWiktionary, English circle. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1598–1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It: “in the circle of this forest”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with circle, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‘to cut off, sever’
- short ← schort ← sċort ← *skurt ← *skurtaz
- across ← acros ← an croiz ← crois ← crux
- share ← schar ← sċear ← *skaraz
- card ← carde ← carda ← *carito ← carō
- cross ← cros ← kross ← cros ← crux
- cancer ← *kankros ← *karkros ← *kr-kr-
- screen ← scren ← escren
- score ← scoru ← skor ← *skurō
- shirt ← schirt ← sċyrte ← *skurtijā ← *skurtijǭ
- curve ← curvus ← *korwos ← *(s)kr̥wós
- scare ← scaren ← skirra ← *skirzijaną
- crucial
164 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun A two-dimensional geometric figure, a line, consisting of the set of all those points in a plane that are equally distant from a given point (center).
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “circle”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin circus / circle