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An instrument of observation, the graduated limb of which consists of an entire circle.

Having the form of a circle; round. "Monthly changes in her circled orb." Shak.

A mean or inferior poet, perhaps from his habit of wandering around as a stroller; an itinerant poet. Also, a name given to the cyclic poets. See under Cyclic, a. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

A little circle; esp., an ornament for the person, having the form of a circle; that which encircles, as a ring, a bracelet, or a headband. Her fair locks in circlet be enrolled. Spenser.

An instrument for measuring angles, in surveying, etc. It resembles

A gallery or circle in a theater, generally the first above the floor, in which originally dress clothes were customarily worn.

To form a circle about; to inclose within a circle or ring; to surround; as, to encircle one in the arms; the army encircled the city. Her brows encircled with his serpent rod. Parnell.

A small circle; a ring. [Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.

See Encircle.

A small circle. [Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.

e rear of the parquet and beneath the galleries; -- called also, esp. in U. S., orchestra circle or parterre.

The half of a circle; the part of a circle bounded by its diameter and half of its circumference.

Semicircular. Shak.

he two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.

A peculiar larval form of Phoronis, a genus of marine worms, having a circle of ciliated tentacles.

A thing to be added; an appendix or addition. Addendum circle (Mech.), the circle which may be described around a circular spur wheel or gear wheel, touching the crests or tips of the teeth. Rankine.

ly invented instrument for observing the heavenly bodies as they cross a given almacantar circle. See Almucantar.

A small circle of the sphere parallel to the horizon; a circle or parallel of altitude. Two stars which have the same almucantar have the same altitude. See Almacantar. [Archaic] Almucanter staff, an ancient instrument, having an arc of fifteen degrees, formerly used at sea to take observations of the sun's amplitude a…

or star, or other celestial object, above the horizon, measured by the arc of a vertical circle intercepted between such point and the horizon. It is either true or apparent; true when measured from the rational or real horizon, apparent when from the sensible or apparent horizon.

A kind of annelid larva having both a dorsal and a ventral circle of special cilia.