Circuit

How to spell circuit

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce circuit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does circuit mean?

1. nounA complete closed path through which an electric current can flow.
2. nounA roughly circular route, track, or series of places regularly travelled or visited.

Circuit in a sentence

• The electrician traced the fault back to a single overloaded circuit.

• The drivers completed a fast practice lap of the racing circuit.

• A short circuit tripped the breaker and cut power to the kitchen.

• The comedian spent the summer on the festival circuit.

Where does circuit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Circuit comes from the Latin circuitus, meaning 'a going around', which was formed from circum, meaning 'around', and ire, meaning 'to go'; its past-participle stem gave itus, 'gone'. English took the word through Old French circuit in the late 1300s, when it first described the act of travelling around a boundary or the line that encloses an area. From that idea of going round and returning to the start grew the later meanings: a regular journey made by judges through a region, a closed track for racing, and, by the nineteenth century, the closed loop that carries an electric current back to its source. The same circum root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'circle', 'circus' and 'circulate', which helps explain why the word keeps that opening 'circ'. The spelling trap is the silent-feeling ending: the '-cuit' is pronounced like 'kit', so writers are tempted to drop the 'u' that the French spelling preserves.

How the word is built

• circu- (from Latin circum, around)
• -it (from itus, a going) = literally a going around