circulate
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
to move continuously through a closed system, like blood in your body or air in a room.
to move through a circuit or closed system and return to the starting point.
Simple“The fan helps the cool air circulate through the entire office.”
In context“In a healthy cardiovascular system, blood must circulate efficiently to deliver oxygen to the extremities and return to the heart.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
to pass something, like a document or a story, from one person to another.
to disseminate information, documents, or rumours within a group or to the public.
Simple“They will circulate the meeting notes to everyone by tomorrow morning.”
In context“The internal memo began to circulate among the staff long before the management made an official announcement regarding the merger.”
Synonyms - 03 C2 Proficiency
when a group of numbers at the end of a decimal repeats forever.
to recur or repeat infinitely, specifically referring to a digit or sequence of digits in a decimal fraction.
Simple“In the fraction one-third, the digit three will circulate forever as a decimal.”
In context“The student noted that the decimal representation of one-seventh contains six digits that circulate in a fixed sequence.”
“But those strategies may need to be reconsidered if mammalian metabolism, rather than microbes, is responsible for much of what circulates in the body.”
“Instead, you can use the fan to circulate air around the room.”
Borrowed from Late Latin circulātus, perfect passive participle of Late Latin circulō (“to make circular, encircle”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), a later collateral form of circulor (“form a circle (of men) around oneself”), from circulus (“a circle”). See also Middle English circulat(e) (“(alchemy) changed by continuous distillation in a closed vessel”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.