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

The depression may circumscribe his behavior, but don’t let it dictate yours.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 21, 2021

And, in futuristic novels, oppressive regimes such as Margaret Atwood’s Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale severely circumscribe touch.

From The Guardian ● May 22, 2020

You would dare to circumscribe the means of usefulness God has given to man—to set a limit to his talents and his labour!

From A Life's Secret A Novel by Mrs. Henry Wood

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

My problem is when I feel like other people’s perceptions and ideas of who I am and who they want me to be circumscribes my life and is limiting.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2021

Using high-profile cases, interdisciplinary research and her own experience, Henning provides a complete account of how the criminal legal system circumscribes every part of Black children’s lives.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 10, 2021

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

From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

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

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

From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025

Yet this project’s geography is circumscribed, its borders hedged.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025

The family shame around Mitchell’s violent death prevented me from understanding his full legacy, and ultimately circumscribed the meaning of his life and art.

From Slate ● Jun. 6, 2025

On the other hand, the rhythmless is unlimited, and the speech should be circumscribed but not by meter; for what is unbounded is unpleasant and unrecognizable.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

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

Briefs supporting and opposing New York have excavated historical examples of laws protecting, and laws circumscribing, the right to carry guns in public.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2021

“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