Rounds

How to spell rounds

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rounds

What does rounds mean?

1. nounRegular circuits of visits, deliveries, or inspections made in a fixed sequence.
2. nounSeparate stages or sessions of a competition, game, or series of drinks.
3. verbMoves around something or shapes something into a curve.

Rounds in a sentence

• noun

  The doctor finished her morning rounds before lunch.

• noun

  The boxer survived all twelve rounds of the fight.

• verb

  The train slows as it rounds the sharp bend.

• noun

  The night guard walks his rounds every two hours.

• noun

  The interview process involved three rounds of questions.

• verb

  She rounds the corner and disappears from view.

Where does rounds come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word round travelled into English from Old French reont or roont, which came from the Latin rotundus, meaning 'circular' or 'wheel-shaped'. That Latin adjective was built directly on rota, the ordinary word for a wheel, so the original idea was literally the shape of a turning wheel. English adopted it in the 1200s and quickly let it bloom into dozens of senses, from the physical shape to a circuit walked again and again, a stage of a contest, and even a measure of drinks bought in turn. The same rota root still spins inside familiar relatives like rotate, rotund, and roundabout. The plural and verb form rounds simply adds -s, and because the spelling is phonetically regular it rarely trips up writers.

How the word is built

• round (from Latin rotundus: round, wheel-shaped)
• -s (plural/third-person verb suffix)