CIRCUIT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Circuit

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/sˈərkət/ Listen

noun

Circuit n.

1.

The act of moving or revolving around, or as in a circle or orbit; a revolution; as, the periodical circuit of the earth round the sun.

2.

The circumference of, or distance round, any space; the measure of a line round an area. "The circuit or compass of Ireland is 1,800 miles."

3.

That which encircles anything, as a ring or crown. "The golden circuit on my head."

4.

The space inclosed within a circle, or within limits. "A circuit wide inclosed with goodliest trees."

5.

A regular or appointed journeying from place to place in the exercise of one's calling, as of a judge, or a preacher.

6.

(a)

(Law) A certain division of a state or country, established by law for a judge or judges to visit, for the administration of justice..

(b)

(Methodist Church) A district in which an itinerant preacher labors.

7.

Circumlocution. (Obs.) "Thou hast used no circuit of words."

Circuit court (Law), a court which sits successively in different places in its circuit (see Circuit, 6). In the United States, the federal circuit courts are commonly presided over by a judge of the supreme court, or a special circuit judge, together with the judge of the district court. They have jurisdiction within statutory limits, both in law and equity, in matters of federal cognizance. Some of the individual States also have circuit courts, which have general statutory jurisdiction of the same class, in matters of State cognizance.

Circuit of action or Circuity of action (Law), a longer course of proceedings than is necessary to attain the object in view.

To make a circuit, to go around; to go a roundabout way.

Voltaic circle or Galvanic circle or Voltaic circuit or Galvanic circuit, a continous electrical communication between the two poles of a battery; an arrangement of voltaic elements or couples with proper conductors, by which a continuous current of electricity is established.

verb

Circuit v. t. To travel around. (Obs.) "Having circuited the air."

Circuit v. i. To move in a circle; to go round; to circulate. (Obs.)

See images of 'Circuit'

Etymology of 'Circuit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Circuit" Quotes from Famous Books

... is mounted on a heavy base, with a key-board containing 20 numbered plugs. If one of the plugs is inserted in a hole in the plate it makes contact with the rod, and when the hour hand of the clock touches the other end the circuit is completed and the bell starts ringing. The period of this friction contact is approximately 20 seconds. The clock can therefore be used for electrically noting the periods of time from one minute by multiples of one minute up ...

— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... made the circuit of the archipelago once, calling at the post office on reaching it, but finding no orders, we had proceeded so far on our cruise as to have arrived off the Square Handkerchief Shoal on our second round, and were about to bear up through the Silver Kay Passage, when, toward the end of ...

— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... the hill Amara (cf. l. 41, where Coleridge's "Mount Abora" seems to stand for Purchas's Amara). Amara in Purchas's account is a hill in a great plain in Ethiopia, used as a prison for the sons of Abyssinian kings. Its level top, twenty leagues in circuit and surrounded by a high wall, is a garden of delight. "Heauen and Earth, Nature and Industrie, have all been corriuals to it, all presenting their best presents, to make it of this so louely presence, some taking this for the place of our Forefathers Paradise." ...

— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... is impossible to make a complete circuit of the church, it is as well to begin at the north transept. Here a wall will be found projecting from the north-east corner, of which the western face is in a very dilapidated condition. This wall contains a good Early English pointed arch, which ...

— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... made by the mob on Big Blue and, the Mormons resisting, the first "battle" of this campaign took place. A sick woman received a pistolshot wound in the head, and one of the Mormons a wound in the thigh. Parley P. Pratt and others were then sent to Lexington to procure a warrant from Circuit Judge Ryland, but, according to Pratt, he refused to grant one, and "advised us to fight and kill the outlaws whenever ...

— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

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