different between stretch vs circle

English

Etymology

From Middle English strecchen, from Old English stre??an (“to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate”), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (“to stretch, make taut or tight”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)treg-, *streg-, *treg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with West Frisian strekke, Dutch strekken (“to stretch, straighten”), German strecken (“to stretch, straighten, elongate”), Danish strække (“to stretch”), Swedish sträcka (“to stretch”), Dutch strak (“taut, tight”), Albanian shtriqem (“to stretch”). More at stark.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st??t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Verb

stretch (third-person singular simple present stretches, present participle stretching, simple past and past participle stretched or (obsolete) straught or (obsolete) straight)

1. (transitive) To lengthen by pulling.

2. (intransitive) To lengthen when pulled.
   • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects

     The inner membrane […] because it would stretch and yield, remained unbroken.

3. (transitive) To pull tight.

4. (figuratively, transitive) To get more use than expected from a limited resource.

5. (figuratively, transitive) To make inaccurate by exaggeration.

6. (intransitive) To extend physically, especially from limit point to limit point.

7. (intransitive, transitive) To extend one’s limbs or another part of the body in order to improve the elasticity of one's muscles

8. (intransitive) To extend to a limit point

9. (transitive) To increase.
10. (obsolete, colloquial) To stretch the truth; to exaggerate.

11. (nautical) To sail by the wind under press of canvas.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

12. (slang, transitive, archaic) To execute by hanging.
13. To make great demands on the capacity or resources of something.

Translations

See also

• pandiculate

Noun

stretch (plural stretches)

1. An act of stretching.

2. The ability to lengthen when pulled.

3. A course of thought which diverts from straightforward logic, or requires extraordinary belief or exaggeration.

4. A segment of a journey or route.

5. A segment or length of material.

6. (Britain, slang, archaic) A walk.
   • Evelyn Underhill, quoted in 2010, Evelyn Underhill, ?Carol Poston, The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill (page 81)

     In the afternoon I went for a stretch into the country, & about 4 it cleared up pretty well, so I hurried back & we got a cart & drove to Bassano, a little town about 8 miles off, that we wanted to see.

7. (baseball) A quick pitching delivery used when runners are on base where the pitcher slides his leg instead of lifting it.
8. (baseball) A long reach in the direction of the ball with a foot remaining on the base by a first baseman in order to catch the ball sooner.
9. (informal) Term of address for a tall person.
10. (horse racing) The homestretch, the final straight section of the track leading to the finish.
11. A length of time.

    • After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever […]

    1. (Ireland) Extended daylight hours, especially said of the evening in springtime when compared to the shorter winter days.

    2. (sports) The period of the season between the trade deadline and the beginning of the playoffs.
    3. (slang) A jail or prison term.

       Synonym: stint

       1. (slang) A jail or prison term of one year's duration.
    4. A single uninterrupted sitting; a turn.
12. A stretch limousine.

Translations

Derived terms

Descendants

• Esperanto: stre?i

Further reading

• stretch at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• (a walk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• strecht

English

Etymology

From Middle English circle, cercle, from Old French cercle and Latin circulus, diminutive of Latin circus (“circle, circus”), from Ancient Greek ?????? (kírkos, “circle, ring”), related to Old English hring (“ring”). Compare also Old English ?ircul (“circle, zodiac”), which came from the same Latin source.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sûr?-k?l, IPA^(key): /?s??k?l/
  • (UK) IPA^(key): [?s??.k??]
  • (US) IPA^(key): [?s?.k??]
• Rhymes: -??(?)k?l
• Homophone: cercal
• Hyphenation: cir?cle

Noun

circle (plural circles)

1. (geometry) 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).

   Synonyms: (not in mathematical use) coil, (not in mathematical use) ring, (not in mathematical use) loop

2. 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 (radius) from a given point.

   Synonyms: disc, (in mathematical and general use) disk, (not in mathematical use; UK & Commonwealth only) round

3. Any shape, curve or arrangement of objects that approximates to or resembles the geometric figures.

   Children, please join hands and form a circle.

   1. Any thin three-dimensional equivalent of the geometric figures.

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

4. A specific group of persons; especially one who shares a common interest.

   Synonyms: bunch, gang, group

   • 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.

5. The orbit of an astronomical body.
6. (cricket) 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.
7. (Wicca) 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.
8. (South Africa) A traffic circle or roundabout.
9. (obsolete) Compass; circuit; enclosure.
10. (astronomy) 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.
11. A series ending where it begins, and repeating itself.

    • Thus in a circle runs the peasant's pain.

12. (logic) A form of argument in which two or more unproved statements are used to prove each other; inconclusive reasoning.
    • 1661, Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing

      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.

13. Indirect form of words; circumlocution.
    • 1610, Ben Jonson, The Alchemist

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

14. A territorial division or district.

15. (in the plural) A bagginess of the skin below the eyes from lack of sleep.

Derived terms

Related terms

• circular
• circulate
• circus

Descendants

• Pitcairn-Norfolk: sirkil

Translations

Verb

circle (third-person singular simple present circles, present participle circling, simple past and past participle circled)

1. (transitive) To travel around along a curved path.

   The wolves circled the herd of deer.
2. (transitive) To surround.

   A high fence circles the enclosure.

   • 1699, William Dampier, Voyages and Descriptions

     Their heads are circled with a short turban.

   • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Dungeon

     So he lies, circled with evil.

3. (transitive) To place or mark a circle around.

   Circle the jobs that you are interested in applying for.

4. (intransitive) To travel in circles.

   Vultures circled overhead.

Derived terms

• circle the drain

Translations

Anagrams

• cleric