Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A condition or fact attending an event and having some bearing on it; a determining or modifying factor.
- noun The sum of determining factors beyond willful control.
- noun Financial status or means.
- noun Formal display; ceremony.
- noun A particular incident or occurrence.
- transitive verb To place in particular circumstances or conditions; situate.
- idiom (under no circumstances) In no case; never.
- idiom (under/in) Given these conditions; such being the case.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To place in a particular situation or condition with regard to attending facts or incidents: only in the past participle: as, he was so circumstanced that he could not accept.
- To control or guide by circumstances: only in the following passage.
- To furnish or dress out with incidents and details; add circumstances to.
- noun A fact related to another fact and modifying or throwing light upon its meaning, significance, importance, etc., without affecting its essential nature; something attending, appendant, or relative; something incidental; an accidental or unessential accompaniment; especially, some fact which gives rise to a certain presumption or tends to afford evidence.
- noun A particular or detail; a matter of small consequence: as, that is a mere circumstance compared to what followed.
- noun Collectively, detail; minuteness; specification of particulars.
- noun A ceremonious accompaniment; a formality required by law or custom; more specifically, in a concrete sense, adjuncts of pomp and ceremony; ceremonies; display.
- noun The surroundings, rarely of a thing, generally of a person; existing condition or state of things; facts external to a person considered as helping or, more especially, as hindering his designs, or as inducing him to act in a certain way; predicament, unforeseen or unprovided for; a person's worldly estate, or condition of wealth or poverty; fortune; means: generally in the plural.
- noun Event; occurrence; incident.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To place in a particular situation; to supply relative incidents.
- noun That which attends, or relates to, or in some way affects, a fact or event; an attendant thing or state of things.
- noun An event; a fact; a particular incident.
- noun obsolete Circumlocution; detail.
- noun Condition in regard to worldly estate; state of property; situation; surroundings.
- noun [Colloq.] of no account.
- noun taking all things into consideration.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun That which
attends , orrelates to, or in some wayaffects , afact orevent ; an attendant thing orstate of things. - noun An event; a fact; a particular
incident . - noun Circumlocution;
detail . - noun Condition in regard to worldly estate; state of
property ; situation; surroundings. - verb To place in a particular situation, especially with regard to money or other resources.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun information that should be kept in mind when making a decision
- noun the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event
- noun a condition that accompanies or influences some event or activity
- noun formal ceremony about important occasions
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word circumstance.
Examples
-
The Enlightenment ideal appropriate to this circumstance is the "pursuit of happiness" which has limited the government's responsibility for my own happiness since 1776.
Layard and Happiness, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
-
Another circumstance is the "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell, sometimes not shelved by bookstores or libraries in their SF sections; of course, the book is about first contact with aliens and travel to an alien planet, it might be Spec.
-
And when so detected they betrayed no recognition of their masters, for no soldier can recognize his dog — so heinous a circumstance is attempted stowaway.
The Red Game of War 1914
-
The last tie, the last constraint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life would be broken; he would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on every wave of circumstance -- what he called circumstance -- till Heaven only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in what forlorn and far off seas his ruined life might go down.
-
The usual course should anyone negotiate in this kind of circumstance is to conduct any correspondence/phone calls/etc “without prejudice”.
-
No iron-clad fundraising rules exist, because each circumstance is different, says Raman Chadha, executive director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul University in Chicago.
-
I realize that these memos were considered to be just the neo-con musings of people like Mr. Yoo and that every administration has drawn up contingency plans for every circumstance from the tragic -- such as nuclear attacks on Washington, D.C. -- to the farcical -- such as invading Canada.
Those Secret Memos 2009
-
In fact, here are the first seven definitions of circumstance from the OED that are not considered obsolete:
-
Her heart is broken, but then a change in circumstance forces Naoki and Kotoko to be together every day …!?
Happy text 2009
-
Her heart is broken, but then a change in circumstance forces Naoki and Kotoko to be together every day …!?
oroboros commented on the word circumstance
"Hello, circumstances. Let me introduce myself:
you are me."
"Oh -- Hi! Glad to meet you."
--Jan Cox
June 30, 2007