round

adj

1. (physical)Of shape:

   “We sat at a round table to make conversation easier.”

   “The flowers glowed red and golden: snapdragons and sunflowers, and nasturtians^([sic]) trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the round windows.”

2. (physical)Of shape:

   “The ancient Egyptian demonstrated that the Earth is round, not flat.”

3. (physical)Of shape:

   “a round belly”

   “a round face”

   “If I close my eyes I can see Marie today as I saw her then. Round, rosy face, snub nose, dark hair piled up in a chignon.”

4. (physical)Of shape:

   “Our child's bed has round corners for safety.”

5. (physical)Of shape:

   “He was tall and thin but his wife was short and round.”

6. Complete, whole, not lacking.

   “The baker sold us a round dozen.”

   “Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon: / A stranger meeting them had surely thought, / They rode so slowly and they look'd so pale, / That each had suffer'd some exceeding wrong.”

7. Convenient for rounding other numbers to; for example, ending in a zero.

   “One hundred is a nice round number.”

8. Pronounced with the lips drawn together; rounded.

   “"Supposing somebody sees you, with all those flowers too? Supposing somebody writes him a letter? Ooooh!" (a pure round open Tamil O.)”

9. Outspoken; plain and direct; unreserved; not mincing words.

   “a round answer”

   “a round oath”

   “the round assertion”

   “Sir Toby, I muſt be round with you.”

   “Well, she must be plain with him, round with him, while she must not betray her child.”

10. Finished; polished; not defective or abrupt; said of authors or their writing style.

    “In his satires Horace is quick, round, and[…]pleasant.”

11. (obsolete)Consistent; fair; just; applied to conduct.

    “Round dealing is the honour of man's nature.”

12. Large in magnitude.

    “I have a good banker in this city, but I would not wish to draw upon the house until the time when I shall draw for a round sum.”

    “By raising turkeys the farmers were able the more surely to pay their rents. Young girls often acquired a very sufficient dowry, and towns-folk who wished to eat them had to pay round prices for them.”

13. Well-written and well-characterized; complex and reminiscent of a real person.
14. Vaulted.
15. Returning to its starting point.

    “round trip, round journey, round walk”

noun

1. A circular or spherical object or part of an object.

   “in labyrinth of many a round self-rolled”

   “Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. [...] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.”

   “All at once the sun was through, a round of dulled silver, racing slantwise through the clouds yet always staying in the same place.”

2. A circular or repetitious route.

   “hospital rounds”

   “The prison guards have started their nightly rounds.”

   “Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.”

3. A general outburst from a group of people at an event.

   “The candidate got a round of applause after every sentence or two.”

4. (countable)A song that is sung by groups of people with each subset of people starting at a different time.
5. A serving of something; a portion of something to each person in a group.

   “They brought us a round of drinks about every thirty minutes.”

   “There is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated rounds of buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of her Ogress's castle.”

   “I said I did impersonations would you like to see Turned around to buy her one more round”

6. A single individual portion or dose of medicine.

   “Daniel underwent one round of chemotherapy in February but stopped after that single treatment, citing religious beliefs.”

7. (UK)One slice of bread.

   “For breakfast I had two rounds of toast and a mug of tea.”

8. One sandwich (two full slices of bread with filling).
9. A long-bristled, circular-headed paintbrush used in oil and acrylic painting.
10. A firearm cartridge, bullet, or any individual ammunition projectile. Originally referring to the spherical projectile ball of a smoothbore firearm. Compare round shot and solid shot.
11. One of the specified pre-determined segments of the total time of a sport event, such as a boxing or wrestling match, during which contestants compete before being signaled to stop.

    “And though Fightville, an MMA documentary from the directors of the fine Iraq War doc Gunner Palace, presents it more than fairly, the sight of a makeshift ring getting constructed on a Louisiana rodeo ground does little to shake the label. Nor do the shots of ringside assistants with spray bottles and rags, mopping up the blood between rounds”

12. A stage, level, set of events in a game

    “qualifying rounds of the championship”

13. A stage, level, set of events in a game
14. A stage, level, set of events in a game

    “When the player uses one shell to complete a round within 50 seconds, it vanishes forever. At the end of two successful rounds, for instance, the player has only two shells to pick from during docking.”

15. A stage, level, set of events in a game
16. A rounded relief or cut at an edge, especially an outside edge, added for a finished appearance and to soften sharp edges.
17. A strip of material with a circular face that covers an edge, gap, or crevice for decorative, sanitary, or security purposes.

    “All furniture in the nursery had rounds on the edges and in the crevices.”

18. The hindquarters of a bovine; a round of beef.
19. (dated)A rung, as of a ladder.

    “All the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise.”

    “The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint.”

20. A crosspiece that joins and braces the legs of a chair.
21. A series of changes or events ending where it began; a series of like events recurring in continuance; a cycle; a periodical revolution.

    “the round of the seasons    a round of pleasures”

    “On life's long round by chance I found A dell impearled with dew, Where hyacinths, gushing from the ground, Lent to the earth heaven's native hue Of holy blue.”

22. A course of action or conduct performed by a number of persons in turn, or one after another, as if seated in a circle.

    “Women to cards may be compar'd: we play ¶ A round or two; when us'd, we throw away.”

    “[…]the Feaſt was ſerv'd; the Bowl was crown'd; To the King's Pleaſure went the mirthful Round: […]”

23. A series of duties or tasks which must be performed in turn, and then repeated.

    “The trivial round, the common task, Would furnish all we ought to ask; […]”

24. A circular dance.

    “Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round.”

25. Rotation, as in office; succession.

    “A Cave[…], Where light and darkness in perpetual round Lodge and dislodge by turns.”

26. A general discharge of firearms by a body of troops in which each soldier fires once.
27. An assembly; a group; a circle.

    “a round of politicians”

28. A brewer's vessel in which the fermentation is concluded, the yeast escaping through the bunghole.
29. (archaic)A vessel filled, as for drinking.
30. A round-top.
31. (Northern-England, Scotland, archaic, dialectal)A whisper; whispering.
32. (Northern-England, Scotland, archaic, dialectal)Discourse; song.

prep

1. (alt-of, alternative, rare)Alternative form of around.

   “I look round the room quickly to make sure it's neat.”

   “The serpent Error twines round human hearts.”

2. (alt-of, alternative, rare)Alternative form of around.

   “The farmer fed his cow hay all the year round.”

adv

1. (alt-of, alternative, not-comparable)Alternative form of around.

   “The invitations were sent round accordingly.”

   “They travelled for thirteen hours down-hill, whilst the streams broadened and the mountains shrank, and the vegetation changed, and the people ceased being ugly and drinking beer, and began instead to drink wine and to be beautiful. And the train which had picked them at sunrise out of a waste of glaciers and hotels was waltzing at sunset round the walls of Verona.”

verb

1. (transitive)To shape something into a curve.

   “The carpenter rounded the edges of the table.”

   “Worms with many feet, which round themselves into balls, are bred chiefly under logs of timber.”

   “The figures on our modern medals are raiſed and rounded to a very great perfection.”

2. (intransitive)To become shaped into a curve.

   “The girl's figure, he perceived, was admirably proportioned; she was evidently at the period when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of adolescence.”

3. To finish; to complete; to fill out; see also round out.

   “She rounded out her education with only a single mathematics class.”

   “We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

4. (intransitive, transitive)To approximate (a number, especially a decimal number) by the closest whole number, or some other close number, especially a whole number of hundreds, thousands, etc.; see also round down, round up.

   “The exact amount was $101.65, but we rounded it to $100.”

   “95.9 rounds to 96.”

5. (transitive)To turn past a boundary.

   “Helen watched him until he rounded the corner.”

6. (intransitive)To turn and attack someone or something (used with on).

   “As a group of policemen went past him, one of them rounded on him, grabbing him by the arm.”

7. (transitive)To advance to home plate.

   “And the runners round the bases on the double by Jones.”

8. (transitive)To go round, pass, go past.

   “Diouf rounded Zaluska near the byeline and crossed but Daniel Majstorovic headed away and Celtic eventually mopped up the danger.”

9. To encircle; to encompass.

   “The inclusive verge Of golden metal that must round my brow.”

10. To grow round or full; hence, to attain to fullness, completeness, or perfection.

    “The queen your mother rounds apace.”

    “So rounds he to a separate mind ⁠From whence clear memory may begin, ⁠As thro’ the frame that binds him in His isolation grows defined.”

11. (colloquial)To do ward rounds.
12. (intransitive, obsolete)To go round, as a guard; to make the rounds.

    “They […] nightly rounding walk.”

13. (intransitive, obsolete)To go or turn round; to wheel about.
14. (Northern-England, Scotland, archaic, dialectal, intransitive)To speak in a low tone; whisper; speak secretly; take counsel.
15. (Northern-England, Scotland, archaic, dialectal, transitive)To address or speak to in a whisper, utter in a whisper.

    “rounded in the ear”

    “The Bishop of Glasgow rounding in his ear, "Ye are not a wise man," […] he rounded likewise to the bishop, and said, "Wherefore brought ye me here?"”

    “Tiberius the emperor […] perceiving a fellow round a dead corse in the ear, would needs know wherefore he did so […]”

name

1. A surname.