Roundabout

How to spell roundabout

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce roundabout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does roundabout mean?

1. nounA circular road junction that traffic moves around in one direction.
2. nounA revolving fairground ride with seats or model horses, also called a merry-go-round.
3. adjectiveNot direct; following a long or circuitous path or way of saying something.

Roundabout in a sentence

• noun

  Take the second exit off the roundabout to reach the station.

• noun

  The children begged for one more turn on the roundabout at the fair.

• adjective

  He gave a roundabout answer that never quite addressed the question.

• noun

  A new roundabout replaced the old crossroads to ease congestion.

• noun

  Painted horses rose and fell as the roundabout spun to organ music.

• adjective

  We took a roundabout route home to avoid the motorway roadworks.

Where does roundabout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a homegrown English compound, stitched together from the two ordinary words 'round' and 'about'. The first element, 'round', reached English through Old French roont and reond from the Latin rotundus, meaning 'circular' or 'wheel-shaped', which in turn grew from rota, the Latin word for a wheel. The second element, 'about', is native Old English, coming from onbutan, literally 'on the outside of', built from 'on' plus 'by' plus 'utan' (outside). Joined together from the 1500s, the pair first worked as an adjective and adverb describing something that goes the long way around rather than straight to the point. Later the noun senses grew out of the same idea of circular motion: a spinning fairground ride in the 1800s and the circular road junction in the 1900s. Because both halves are plain everyday words spelled exactly as they sound, the spelling holds few surprises.

How the word is built

• round (circular)
• about (around, on every side)