Circumference

How to spell circumference

13 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce circumference

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does circumference mean?

1. nounThe distance all the way around the edge of a circle or any roughly round object.

Circumference in a sentence

• The gardener measured the circumference of the old oak trunk with a tape.

• To find the circumference of a circle, multiply its diameter by pi.

Where does circumference come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin circumferentia, meaning 'a carrying around' or 'the boundary that runs around a shape'. It was built from the verb circumferre, which joined circum, meaning 'around', to ferre, meaning 'to carry' or 'to bear'. Roman mathematicians used it as a direct translation of the Greek periphereia, the line that travels right round a circle, which is also the source of our word 'periphery'. English took it on in the late 1300s, and the spelling has faithfully kept its Latin parts ever since. The fer root for 'carrying' is the same one hiding in 'transfer', 'refer', and 'ferry', and remembering that circum means 'around' is the surest way to lock in the tricky middle, c-i-r-c-u-m, before the f.

How the word is built

• circum- (around)
• fer (to carry/bear)
• -ence (noun-forming suffix)