Circumstantial

How to spell circumstantial

14 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce circumstantial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does circumstantial mean?

1. adjectiveBased on or pointing to a conclusion from surrounding details rather than direct proof; relating to the circumstances of a situation.

Circumstantial in a sentence

• The prosecution relied entirely on circumstantial evidence rather than a confession.

• The link between the two events was purely circumstantial and proved nothing.

Where does circumstantial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin circumstantia, meaning 'a standing around' or 'surrounding condition', which was built from circum 'around' and stare 'to stand'. The literal idea was of the various things that 'stand around' an event, that is, the attendant details and surrounding facts. Latin scholars used circumstantia to translate a Greek notion of the particulars attending an action, and from there it passed into Old French and then into English in the late Middle Ages. The adjective circumstantial emerged in the 1600s to describe something relating to circumstances, and it soon took on its sharp legal sense for evidence that points to a conclusion indirectly rather than proving it outright. The same stare root sits inside familiar words like 'stand', 'stable', and 'circumstance' itself, and remembering 'circumstance' is the easiest way to keep the tricky -stant- and -tial spelling on track.

How the word is built

• circum- (around)
• stant (standing, from stare 'to stand')
• -ial (adjective suffix)