circumscribe

Perhaps anyone could guess as much, but what a layman might never know without Stanford’s book is that our busy roads severely circumscribe the territory cougars can roam, leading to isolation and inbreeding.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2024

The charter provision does not appear to circumscribe that investigative authority for the department’s highest-ranking officer, the police chief.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023

If successful, its stem-cell-derived therapy would eliminate the pin-pricks and insulin injections that circumscribe the lives of the 1.5 million Americans with Type 1 diabetes.

From New York Times ● Aug. 9, 2022

Howlers typically start at dusk and end hours later, following desolate fire roads that circumscribe an area known to contain wolves.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 28, 2021

It is upon the same principle that a higher intelligence is able to comprehend, circumscribe, and instruct that which is less.

From Key to the Science of Theology by Parley P. Pratt

It’s one thing to confer maximalist, seemingly boundless authority on the executive branch and on the president that, by definition, circumscribes the judicial role.

From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2025

But Wednesday’s ruling seriously circumscribes the instances where that can actually happen, justices said.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2022

Eight years after Diane Vidalakis’ delivery at Huntington, the injury she says she sustained under Sutton’s care circumscribes her life.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2018

My son doesn’t like seafood, so that circumscribes that.

From New York Times ● Aug. 14, 2015

We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.

From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

Of course the playwright has prepared the way, but the wayward emotions emanating from these inwardly glowing performances are refreshing in work that has the crisp, circumscribed elegance of a mathematical proof.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

In imagining her disturbed perceptions, the novel shows the old dog’s circumscribed world transfigured by long forgotten yearnings and powerfully altered understandings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Yet the pardon power is circumscribed: It applies only to criminal “offenses,” excluding impeachments.

From Slate ● May 26, 2026

As recently as the noncooperation movement in 1920-22, women played a far more circumscribed role.

From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025

It was strange because it was circumscribed, because it was concentrated on a angle intention.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

That precedent set a “great level of deference” as the standard of review for deployments that have since mushroomed across the country, circumscribing debate even in courts where it is not legally binding.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025

When, however, I search for “War on Terror, civilians killed” without even circumscribing the time range, I get about 850,000 results.

From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2024

"But that does not mean that Greece is to blame, it is just circumscribing specific areas of responsibility," he added.

From Reuters ● Jun. 15, 2023

Tightly circumscribing the zones where we can truly feel free and relaxed reminds us just how small those areas have become, and how desperately we must fight to preserve them.

From Washington Post ● May 23, 2017

“With every passing day, Watergate was circumscribing our freedom of action,” Kissinger, the one person unscathed by scandal, later said.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin