Library / English Dictionary

ENVIRON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle

Example:

The forest surrounds my property

Synonyms:

border; environ; ring; skirt; surround

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "environ" is one way to...):

adjoin; contact; meet; touch (be in direct physical contact with; make contact)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "environ"):

fringe (decorate with or as if with a surrounding fringe)

gird; girdle (put a girdle on or around)

cloister (surround with a cloister)

close in; enclose; inclose; shut in (surround completely)

hem in (surround in a restrictive manner)

cloister (surround with a cloister, as of a garden)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

His spirits, during the last two or three days, though still very unequal, were greatly improved—he grew more and more partial to the house and environs—never spoke of going away without a sigh—declared his time to be wholly disengaged—even doubted to what place he should go when he left them—but still, go he must.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating epoch of English history.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and with no events, and no delays, they regularly advanced, and were in the environs of Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her, and wonder at the new buildings.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Miss Tilney, to whom all the commonly frequented environs were familiar, spoke of them in terms which made her all eagerness to know them too; and on her openly fearing that she might find nobody to go with her, it was proposed by the brother and sister that they should join in a walk, some morning or other.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Winthrop, however, or its environs—for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home—was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur’s Seat, St. Bernard’s Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)